I’ll be talking at this information event about the Open Data Challenge Series at Nesta?(the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) in a couple of weeks time on Wednesday 28th August.

The?Open Data Challenge Series is the new name for what was called the Immersion Programme and is being run jointly by The Open Data Institute and Nesta . They are competitions that pose challenges in seven different areas?and explore how to use open data to address them. There is a grand prize of ?40,000-?50,000 for the winning project in each theme.

The aim of the series is to help develop solutions that show they have potential to impact positively upon the challenge and also have a credible plan and market.?I’m currently series lead for the first challenge, Crime and Justice, which I’ve previously blogged about on here.?The other challenges soon to start up are themed around Energy & the Environment and Midata.

The?Open Data Challenge Series offers a fantastic opportunity to get open data projects started or further developed, encourage further publication of open data and link developers with people in government. We’ve already had some successes in these areas.

As well as the presentations there will be some facilitated discussions around each of the themes, an opportunity to hear from the Nesta and ODI teams and also to meet other people interested in the programme.

Registration opens at 3.30pm with the event starting at 4pm followed by networking drinks after the finish at 6pm.

British Sign Language interpreters have been booked for the session and, for anybody who isn’t able to attend,?we?ll be sharing media from it shortly afterwards.