On April 29, 2015, Enerknol participated in the first-ever U.S. Department of Energy Open Data Roundtable. Erin Carson, Enerknol’s Chief Policy Strategist, was one of about 60 participants at the unique event that connected federal agencies and the White House with top energy entrepreneurs and industry leaders who use government data to create value.

“The Roundtable was a great way to bring together senior government officials who manage massive amounts of information with those of us who aim to make sense of and create value out of that data,” said Carson. “We hope to see more of these types of events and conversations, which are essential to accessing information that is often buried on government websites.”

Dr. DJ Patil, the Chief Data Scientist at The White House Office of Science and Technology, opened the event by exhorting government and industry to transform high quality data into actionable outcomes. “We have to build data like it’s a superpower for people,” he said. “How do you know if it’s a superpower? Because without it, you feel crippled.” Data has to stick with the user in an emotional way, he added, otherwise it won’t be used.

EnerKnol Data’s data cloud platform aggregates and tracks in real-time the most important regulatory and legislative information directly from the most relevant government agencies and offices in the United States, and it is a direct user of DOE filings and databases.

The stated goals of the Roundtable were to gain a better understanding of the uses and successes in using DOE open energy data, identifying areas for improvement, connecting DOE with its users, and fostering a dialogue on the access and use of DOE and National Laboratory open data.

Throughout the day, participants from the White House, federal agencies, and leading members of the energy industry discussed how to make use of open data, ways industry can respond to existing data sets, and how to turn data ideas into action. The DOE will release highlights in a publicly available report in coming months, and in the interim, Enerknol and other industry leaders will continue to foster the dialogue and creativity in generating government data into outcomes that provide actionable use.