We know data lurks in every nook of our increasingly mobile, “smart” lifestyles. Brendan Stennett and Bryan Smith, cofounders of ThinkData Works, Inc., saw a common access problem in getting to that data. Hence, the impetus for founding their company, which aims to put open data in the hands of people that can use it.

Open data refers to public data and information available from government and other sources. Open data can help solve civic problems, help you start a business, or help you find cheap rent. Giving more people access to this data allows more people to solve big problems.

Stennett told Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the HPE Big Data Conference that ThinkData Works receives frequent requests for financial-related data. It also receives more unusual requests, such as parking meter locations. With this data, he hopes that someday we’ll learn where the available parking spots are.

Most of ThinkData Works’ information comes from government data portals. “We’ve created techniques to search for these portals, to look for certain commonalities and adjust them into our process,” he said.

Stennett said there are about 1,000 different sources of open data in North America that he knows of, which translates to 75,000 to 100,000 different datasets.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the HPE Big Data Conference.

Photo by SiliconANGLE