Free the data! How do we liberate open data?

I’m at DC Data Innovation Day today and had the opportunity to hear a panel discussion around “The Data Economy.” A point that was raised by Francine Berman (Chair, US Research Data Alliance) included how we can open up a new market within the private sector by better understanding what data the Federal Government is storing and makes accessible to the public.

Would limiting the amount of data sets that is stored by the federal government help improve the cost of storage? Should the federal government sell their data to the private sector? The Freedom of Information Act allows data to be available to the public, but how do we “liberate” the data to spur innovation?

Would love to hear thoughts on this and if you’re on twitter, join the discussion on #DataInnovation.