In February 2014 Governor Malloy announced by Executive Order the creation of the Connecticut Open Data Portal. The Portal is a collection of state agency data freely available to the public at data.ct.gov. The Portal is managed by the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management.  Tyler Kleykamp has been appointed as the state's first Chief Data Coordinator, building on his long history of GIS Data and Mapping work with the state's GIS Council and his contributions to the State Broadband Initiative and BTOP grant applications process, which brought over 100 million dollars in federal grants funds into Connecticut to advance broadband access and adoption.

The creation of the Portal follows recent national and state trends toward “open data” initiatives. Open data is based on the idea that data should be publicly available, easily accessible, and can be republished without copyright or other legal infringements. Connecticut agencies hold a plethora of valuable data such as data on labor, public health, government finances, education, public safety, and more. With the creation of the Portal, data will be in a centralized location facilitating easy access for the public.

Further, access to a high speed broadband connection would enhance the Data Portal experience for the user.  The user would be able to access and download the data at high speeds. Further, high speed broadband would be indispensable to researchers and businesses that download large data sets for analysis.  Connecticut’s plans to expand broadband access effectively works in tandem with its open data policy initiative.