Governor Pat Quinn, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently unveiled www.MetroChicagoData.org, the nation’s first data convergence cloud that brings public data from the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois into a single Open Data portal. With easy access by residents and businesses in the metro Chicago area, this enhances the previous Internet offering.

“We are collaborating with our partners, the City of Chicago and Cook County, to not only break down the barriers between us and increase government transparency, but also to apply the lessons learned in the world of information technology to create new opportunities for entrepreneurship, foster creativity and create jobs,” said Governor Quinn. “Making raw data more easily available to the public in areas such as health care, public safety, economic development and transportation will make government accessible and empower our citizens to develop new software applications to improve government processes.”

MarketWatch brought this interesting information to our attention in their article, Governor Quinn, Cook County President Preckwinkle and Mayor Emanuel Unveil Nation’s First, Data Convergence Cloud, Powered by Socrata.”

Melody K. Smith

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