Sporting the title of Head of Making Public Data Public and data.gov.uk, Richard Stirling leads the central team behind those two initiatives, based out of the Cabinet Office of the UK Government.

In our conversation we discuss data.gov.uk which emerged from a conversation between  Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the Prime Minister, less than a year ago, and how Richard found himself involved.

The setting up and launch of data.gov.uk, with external advisors Sir Tim Berners-Lee & Nigel Shadbolt, exceedingly short development period, and involvement of the wider community, has been very different to the popular conception of a government IT project.  Richard gives us some insight as to what it has been like on the inside.  He also explains the focus on taking data in to RDF and Linked Data in addition to publishing it in the form provided by the originating departments.

With a look in to what might be next, Richard gives us a great view of what is behind the web site.

Picture published on Flickr by Thayer18