This may be of interest to some people. It’d be nice to see open data being used around open education....may be a good opportunity to meet people and chat to Nesta/ODI people, copying details from URL below http://theodi.org/meetups/education-open-data-meet-up

Open Data Challenge Series: Education meet-up

Wednesday 29 January 2014, 6:00pm - 7:30pm

Nesta, 1 Plough Place, EC4A 1DE

Join us for an evening of networking, exploration and information. Nesta and the Open Data Institute (ODI) are working together to run the Open Data Challenge Series http://www.nesta.org.uk/project/open-data-challenge-series . Our second challenge is focused on education.

Together, at this meet-up we will discuss the Education Open Data Challenge http://www.nesta.org.uk/project/open-data-challenge-series/Education-Open-D ata-Challenge , showcase the datasets, explore your ideas and have a few drinks.

Book your place here http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/education-open-data-challenge-meet-up-tickets -10166605591 .

The Education Challenge

How can open data be used to help parents make informed choices about their children’s education in one (or more) of three key areas:

* Expressing a preference for a school * Choosing a subject or other learning priorities * Engaging with their children’s learning.

Whether helping parents to better understand how their child is performing compared to others; enabling them to raise challenging issues at parents’ evening, or supporting them to understand which local schools or GCSE subjects are most suited to their child, this challenge has the potential to ensure parents bridge the ‘home – education’ gap and ultimately improve their child’s chances of success in life beyond school.

Win

If you’re interested in building innovative tools to solve this challenge - submit your idea on our Collab Finder http://collabfinder.com/groups/education-open-data-challenge-series page to be considered and come to our meet up event. Ideas and teams will be selected to attend our Creation Weekend on March 15/16th at which three finalists will be chosen to receive £5,000 seed funding and support. The final winning idea could receive up to £50,000 to launch their startup.