On March 10, 2025, Open Knowledge Foundation Greece, in collaboration with the International Hellenic University (IHU), hosted the event “Open Data Day 2025: Addressing Modern Challenges with Open Data – Presentation of the ‘OpenUp Thessaloniki Climate 2025’ Competition.” The event took place in the Main Amphitheatre of the Department of Information and Electronic Engineering at IHU with the participation of the Region of Central Macedonia, the Municipality of Thessaloniki and various public bodies, and was dedicated to open data and its role in tackling contemporary challenges. The main focus of the event was the presentation of the ‘OpenUp Thessaloniki Climate 2025’ competition, which will run under the Public Administration pilot of the UPCAST Project.
The competition was introduced by Charalampos Bratsas, Assistant Professor at the Department of Information and Electronic Engineering at the International Hellenic University and President of OKF Greece, and George-Christoforos Kazlaris, PhD Candidate at IHU and Research Associate at OKF Greece who provided insights into how this initiative will contribute to the creation of innovative applications to address climate challenges and environmental policy-making.
To facilitate the development of these applications, the Open Data Marketplace platform will be utilized as the central hub for data collection, negotiation and data publishing. The platform will integrate advanced plugins developed as part of the UPCAST project, such as the “Negotiation and Contracting”, “Discovery”, “Publishing” and others giving end-users the opportunity to leverage and validate the respective functionalities of UPCAST in regards to the Public Administration Pilot. The Negotiation plugin will enable stakeholders to collaboratively agree on data-sharing terms, while the Discovery plugin will help users efficiently find and access relevant datasets.
The OpenUP competition is organized by OKFN Greece, the Major Development Agency Thessaloniki (MDAT SA), the Municipality of Thessaloniki, the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) and the International Hellenic University (IHU). Currently, 10 organizations have provided data to the Open Data Marketplace, including ELSTAT, the Municipality of Thessaloniki, ANATOLIKI S.A., Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT) and EYATH, as data providers of the Open Data MarketPlace, ensuring a rich and diverse dataset for use in developing innovative solutions. All data providers stated that they are at the disposal of the competition contestants for the provision of additional data through the Open Data MarketPlace.