Bangladesh Open Government Data Portal for A2i

The following case study has been developed based on LightCastle’s work for A2i.

The Opportunity

In 2016, a2i, the world’s first Innovation Lab+ and the key driver of the Prime Minister’s Office of the Bangladesh government’s public service innovation agenda, initiated a project to increase the accessibility of data among the general public through a one-stop open government data portal.

The net of internet inclusion has widened drastically in Bangladesh over the last few years with the introduction of 3G technology and the proliferation of smartphone sales. This increase in internet usage has significantly affected how the public access and search for information in this age. Hence, through a unified data bank, the general public would have access to crucial information that would facilitate progress in academics, businesses, infrastructural development, agriculture, etc. The open government data portal would also help digital services and businesses gain access to information that would help them further their business ventures.

Our Approach

In collaboration with one of the largest tech firms in Bangladesh, Orangebd, LightCastle (LCP) as data consultants, helped create the open data portal from inception to end-product. LightCastle was critical in conceptualizing the framework of the data portal, designing the data portal’s layout, and in collaborating with the developers (Orangebd) to create the portal’s final public beta version. The beta version includes existing data sets from multiple government bodies such as the Ministry of Planning, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, LGED, etc. collated, organized, and visualized by LightCastle.

Although government-based data is available online, it is highly fragmented and sometimes inaccessible to the general public. We focused on critical stakeholder engagement in order to collate relevant data sets from stakeholder government sources and organize and visualize the data in a format that is easily discernible by any user of the platform. We also helped pave a marketing roadmap for a2i that would help them effectively reach out to the public and increase the popularity and user base of the platform. Through a data-driven approach, some of the key questions that we explored are:

Who are the primary and secondary users of the portal

1. What kind of data attracts them
2. Where will data be sourced from
3. What formats are currently used to store, curate, and visualize data
4. How do the target users want to visualize data and in what formats
5. How will the data facilitate digital service provision across Bangladesh

The Future

• The beta version of the data portal has already been launched as data.gov.bd.
• The Government is set to inaugurate and officially launch the data portal to the general public in the coming months.