Being skeptical of me, i thought i would never see the day when the words like “open data”, “API” and “awesome site” being put in the same sentence as “Indonesian government”.
Publicly launched yesterday at Soehanna Hall, Portal Data Indonesia (PDI) is an integrated portal which hosted public data from various government institutions. Spearheaded by Presidential Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring & Oversight, PDI aims to promote government openness by providing public access to variety of government data.
In my Corporate Strategy gig, i used this kind of data a lot. For example : before deciding which areas to invest, analysis need to be done to check whether the area are feasible and potentially profitable. This will need data such as people demographics, spending level and mobile penetration. Some of this are available in BPS report but if i want to get raw data in XLS files, i need to go to BPS office, fill some forms and pay some fees. In short, its a hassle.
Rather than looking like the usual government website (design challenged and looks like it made in the 90’s), PDI comes with startup-esque slick design. Not only pretty looks, PDI comes with cool features such as belo. You can instantly make graphic in the site with provided data.
The coolest thing is, you can access the data programmaticly via open API. Click on the green button to see the API docs. In the “Aplikasi” tab, you can see example of the application which already used this data.
Due to its beta stage, it has many shortcomings such as the provided data is still not much and most part of the API documentation are still unfinished. Still, this is a really good start for promoting government openness.
Not only that, in terms of design and features, PDI is a leap years ahead. Finally i have the luxury of hoping that our government embrace technology and moving to the right direction. Which is the future, rather than stuck in bureaucratic new order corruption and gerrymandering mess.
I really really hope PDI can be regularly update, sustain and be really usable for all.
Kudos to our nation brightest minds in UKP4 for championing this idea. Eventhough your name sounds boring, your execution is awesome.
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