About VLED

Lately, there has been a notable increase worldwide, not to mention the United States and European countries, in expectations for public opening of information/data which have been utilized solely within organizations of the national government, local public bodies and public service entities (hereinafter collectively referred to as "public organizations"), as well as for the creation of new services and businesses utilizing big data including information/data which have been utilized by private companies and markets, and a variety of approaches to bring such expectations into reality have been gaining momentum. In response to such a trend in the world, "e-Government Open Data Strategy" was formulated in Japan by the Strategic Headquarters for the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society ("IT Strategic Headquarters") on July 4, 2012, and work towards the public opening of the data owned by various ministries and agencies has been proceeded with by the "e-Government Open Data Conference of working-level personnel" established in November 2012 within IT Strategic Headquarters. And a trial version of the government data-catalogue website was made open to the public at the end of December 2013, and the formal operation of the website was initiated on October 1, 2014. In the meantime, "Open Data Promotion Consortium" was established in July 2012 with a view to promoting the improvement in the environment for smooth distribution/circulation of open data, by collaboration among industry, academia and government, and ever since, the Consortium has been examining/assessing rules and techniques for the utilization of open data, and has also been engaged in the activities of disseminating and enlightening them.

When we turn our eyes to the situation in other countries, "Open Data Chapter" was agreed upon at the G8 Summit held in June 2013 in England, and G8 member countries are all now required to publish their individual key data sets by the end of 2015. In response to such a request, "Japan Open Data Chapter Action Plan" was adopted on October 29, 2013 at the Ministry CIO Liaison Committee, and the schedule for opening the data-sets of key data was announced.

The data owned by public organizations are precious assets and resources, but despite the fact that their opening to the public has been proceeded with reflecting the general trend for open data in the world, they have not necessarily been utilized in an effective manner at the present. In Japan, like all other countries, not only improvement and higher efficiency of public services to the nation but also improvement in transparency, higher efficiency of corporate activities and creation of new services and businesses are anticipated through effective use of these assets and resources. As regards the economic effect in Japan expected from the open data, an assumption of a market scale of about 1.2 trillion yen and the economic ripple effect of about 5.5 trillion yen has been inferred from a trial calculation in which the investigation results submitted to the European Commission are converted to the case of Japan based on the comparison of sizes of GDPs of European countries and that of Japan.

For the purpose of promoting open data, in addition to proactive opening of data by public organizations, not only seamless connection between the data owned by public organizations and those owned by the private sector (through the means of standardizing data formats taking into account the mashup with the data owned by the private sector, and of disseminating/promoting use of high-communality data from among those owned by the private sector, and so forth), but also utilization as big data of the data owned by public organizations and those owned by the private sector are thought to lead to the creation of new services and businesses.

While the mechanism of opening the data owned by the national government and local public bodies has gradually been developed, the opening of the data owned by the public organizations has not well advanced yet, and thus, the level of creating new services and businesses through the mashup of data still remains rather limited. Henceforth, in parallel with the data opening through cooperation among public organizations, it is considered to be important to improve the mechanism of combining the data of private sector with the open data of the national government and local public bodies.

"Vitalizing Local Economy Organization by Open Data & Big Data" (VLED) was established as an organization in the form of a general incorporated association in expectation that such form of organization has a relatively high degree of maneuverability (freedom) in its operations. It succeeded all the results of activities conducted by Open Data Promotion Consortium. Its objectives are to create new businesses and to promote regional revitalization, by promoting the public opening of data owned by private sector and also by utilizing such data as big data in combination with the data made open by the national and local public bodies. VLED also aims at vitalizing economies all the more, taking the opportunity of Tokyo's holding the Olympic Games and the Paralympics in 2020.