GDS Tech Talks: Interoperability and Open Standards 

Rosalie Marshall

This morning of Tech Talks is geared towards giving you understanding of how we can drive more interoperability within government, taking account of popular Open Standards (some of which have been recently adopted by the Open Standards Board) and trends within the API space. The morning should shed light on the following questions: 
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Recently the Open Standards Board has reviewed a number of new open standards for government but what do these new standards mean? And what other Open Standards should we as a government community be considering?
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The API and Data Exchange Community meets regularly to discuss standards and best practice, and many departments are now launching their own API strategies, but what trends in standards and in the market should they be watching out for?
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How can we make sure our development is as ethical, efficient, and as useful to the user as possible?
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How can the OpenAPI spec make APIs more useful to users and why should you bother with API definition files?
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The morning is open to those from central and local government. Please register with your work email address and remember to bring ID with you on the day (this can be your government pass).
<H2>Agenda</H2>
<H2>(Please see below this section for speaker bios..) </H2>
10:00 - 10:05: Welcome, Rosalie Marshall and James O'Neil, GDS Data Standards 
10:05 -10:55: What's new in Web Standards? Dan Appelquist, Samsung Internet Director of Web Advocacy, co-chair of the W3C Technical Architecture Group and Open Standards Board member. 
What's new in the web? Isn't HTML done by now? Actually, there has never been time of more innovation in the web platform. New APIs and technologies are being added to the web and are fast becoming part of the services we use. At the same time, this acceleration of innovation is causing concern to some about unintended consequences and potential misuse. As co-chair of the W3C Technical Architecture Group, Dan has been involved in looking at new Web APIs and technologies that are being added to the web. Dan will be talking about his work in reviewing specifications relating to Open Standards for W3C <A HREF="https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/</A> and his co-writing of the Ethical Web Principles <A HREF="https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/ethical-web-principles/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/ethical-web-principles/</A>.   
Attend Dan’s talk to learn more about: new web technologies and APIs, privacy, sustainability, social responsibility, inclusion.
Ask Dan about: how to get involved in web standards
10:55 - 11:05: BREAK AND NETWORKING 
11:05 - 11:55: Introduction to OpenAPI, Lorna Mitchell, Developer Advocate at Nexmo 
The Open API Specification is a machine and human readable way to describe APIs, which has recently been adopted as an Open Standard for Government. The spec can be used to generate documentation, create libraries, and ensure that our users know exactly what to expect from our APIs. 
Lorna has found the OpenAPI spec very useful in her work at Nexmo and will give you a walk around OAS from the beginning, showing how to create the specs and recommending some tools to help the process. Lorna will also show you some of the things that you can offer once your API is described in this way, and how OpenAPI lets you easily poke around with unfamiliar APIs. This session is recommended for writers looking to become more API-savvy and developers/technical architects wanting to make their APIs more useful to their users, as well as those who are interested in API management more generally. 
11:55 - 12:05: BREAK AND NETWORKING 
12:00 - 12:55: API First For The Humans And The Machines, Kin Lane, General API Evangelist, and Chief Evangelist at Postman. <A HREF="https://www.getpostman.com/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> </A>
<DIV CLASS="gmail_quote">
Talk summary: APIs are very technical, but ultimately they are still meant for humans to find, understand, and put to work in our busy personal and professional lives. Understanding and prioritizing humans throughout the API software life cycle development process helps us deliver better quality APIs for use across desktop, web, mobile, and device applications, while also ensuring that the people and processes that engage with these applications are considered throughout their development and evolution.
Attend Kin’s talk to learn more about:
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APIs are widely considered to be something that is exclusively in the domain of software developers. While it is true that APIs are often a very technical and abstract concept which requires a more technically inclined individual to engage, APIs are something that impacts everyone across todays digital landscape, impacting both business users and developers, making the API development life cycle something all parties should be educated on, made aware of, and equipped to participe in. As part of my contribution to the GDS talks on interoperability and open standards I’d like to spend an hour with you talking through the human-machine intersection across:
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API Definitions - Talking about Swagger / OpenAPI, as well as Postman collections and environments, and how they are being put to use.
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API Documentation - Understanding common approaches to delivering and maintaining documentation for APIs that are being delivered.
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API Mocks - Thinking about how API mocking can be used to articulate and share what an API delivers for all stakeholders involved.
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API Testing - Understanding the role that API assertions and testing play in defining the operations and reliability of our API infrastructure.
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API Management - Looking at how API management secures our APIs, but also helps us develop the awareness of how they are used.
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API Contracts - Having an honest conversation about the observability and reliability of the APIs we are providing to our consumers.
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API First - Highlight the potential of being API first when it comes to delivering desktop, web, mobile, and device applications.
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This discussion about APIs in government is meant to help show the important role that non-developers play in the API development and delivery life cycle. Focusing on the role that API definitions play in making APIs more accessible to developers and non-developers, and help facilitate a more organized and collaborative approach to delivering and consuming APIs. Helping all participants understand how APIs are driving different types of applications, as well as system integrations, helping ensure that government better serves its constituents, and is an active player in the API economy, maintaining its role when it comes to setting the tone in how markets work. 
You can ask Kin about: 
<DIV CLASS="gmail_quote">
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how Postman can help you in your API and documentation lifecycle
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his work for the US government and more recently helping the European Commission with its API strategy across EU member states- driven to create better outcomes for the public through great government digital services.
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his innovation work at the US Department of Veterans Affairs
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potential and trends of APIs
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the <A HREF="http://openreferral.org/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Open Referral 211 standard</A> for helping cities make their health and human services more accessible
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the 311, 511, and other standards that help make our cities more livable, and accessible to all citizens
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API integration platforms ( services that help developers or business users integrate using multiple API)
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What the term ‘open API’ means (many API providers proclaim they have an open API, when in reality there are very, very, very, very, very, few APIs that are actually open) 
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<H2>Biographies </H2>
Daniel Appelquist is an open web advocate who leads the developer advocacy team at <A HREF="https://samsunginter.net" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Samsung Internet</A> and co-chairs the <A HREF="https://w3.org/tag" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">w3c Technical Architecture Group</A>.
Dan has co-founded the Over the Air hack day / event series which has been getting bigger and better every year, as well as the MobileMonday London and the Mobile 2.0 conference series. He has provided mentorship to companies in the Open Data Incubator for Europe (ODINE) start-up programme. 
Dan previously worked at GDS as the Technical Standards Lead, and prior to that was the Head of Product Management for Telefónica’s BlueVia developer platform. 
Dan is a frequent blogger and some of his posts can be <A HREF="https://medium.com/@torgo" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">found on his medium account</A>.
Lorna Mitchell is based in Huddersfield, in northern England and is a Developer Advocate for Nexmo which means she plays with APIs and writes an approximately equal volume of code and words for a living.
Lorna is the author of "PHP Web Services" and "PHP Master" as well as being a regular conference speaker and writer for a number of outlets. You can find information about her books and videos in the <A HREF="https://lornajane.net/publications" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">publications</A> section, and links to recent talks, slide decks, articles and other activities under <A HREF="https://lornajane.net/resources" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">"More LornaJane"</A>.
Kin Lane is an API Evangelist, not for a single API, but for all APIs. Kin is most known for all the work he has done for the US government, both as a consultant and as the Presidential Innovation Fellow for the US Department of Veterans Affairs. He is currently the Chief Evangelist at <A HREF="https://www.getpostman.com/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Postman</A>, helping shape the narrative of what the modern API life cycle looks like, and how the developer tool can help make you be more successful in your API journey. Kin is a regular blogger and has recent posts at <A HREF="https://www.apiscene.io/author/kin-lane/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">apiscene.io</A>, <A HREF="https://apievangelist.com/blog/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://apievangelist.com</A> and on the<A HREF="https://blog.getpostman.com/author/kinlane/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> Postman blog</A>.  
Kin worked for the Obama administration in 2013 to deliver better outcomes for the public through great government digital services and APIs. More recently he helped the European Comission with its API strategy across EU member states.Kin has been involved in the <A HREF="http://openreferral.org/" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Open Referral 211 standard</A> to help cities make their health and human services more accessible, and is also very interested in the 311, 511, and other standards that help make cities more livable, and accessible to all citizens.

GDS Offices, The Whitechapel Building

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