Blog
Analysis, guides and insights from the Smart Island team.
Isle of Man Births, Deaths & Marriages: What the Data Reveals
We parsed ten years of Civil Registry data to reveal when people are born, when they die, and when they get married on the Isle of Man. The findings include a widening population deficit, a September baby boom, and the near-disappearance of church weddings.
Why We Built the Isle of Man's Open Data Platform
Isle of Man Government data exists — but it's scattered across websites, buried in PDFs, and sometimes locked in scanned images. We built 65+ automated pipelines to scrape, parse, OCR, and structure it into a single platform with APIs, AI tools, and bulk downloads.
The Isle of Man's Schools Are Shrinking: What 6 Years of Data Reveal
We parsed 6 years of school roll PDFs — including OCR extraction from scanned documents — to build the Isle of Man's first comprehensive schools dataset. The numbers tell a clear story: enrolment is falling, and the pipeline of future pupils is shrinking.
Isle of Man: Highest Working-Age Labour Force Participation in the Developed World
At 84.4%, the Isle of Man's working-age participation rate is higher than Japan, Germany, Ireland, and the UK. We scraped real IOMG employment data and combined it with World Bank age-structure data to calculate a figure the government doesn't publish — and the results tell a remarkable story.
Performance Overhaul, AI Fluency Rubric Matrix, and 65 Automated Pipelines
Evening update: 72 pages converted from dynamic to ISR for dramatically faster load times, a full-screen AI Fluency Rubric matrix showing Unacceptable → Transformative for every task, and a look at the 65+ automated pipelines that keep SmartIsland running.
Vehicle Emissions Tracker, AI Fluency Guides, and Platform-Wide Updates
A packed update: new vehicle CO2 emissions and EV adoption page, AI fluency career guides inspired by Zapier's hiring rubric, planning applications overlaid on the biosphere ecosystem map, optimised vehicle queries, and a morning security check confirming we're clear of the axios supply chain vulnerability.
New: Property Price Search & Ecosystem Map Redesign
Two big updates today: a searchable property price register covering 40,000+ Isle of Man land transactions with full sale history, and a redesigned Biosphere Ecosystem map with an interactive side panel.
Smart Island Hits 30 Datasets — FOI, Marine Maps, Financial Intelligence, and More
A massive platform update — 30 open datasets, interactive marine maps with EMODnet, 4,000+ FOI requests, CURA telecoms data, FIU financial intelligence, broadband speed comparisons, and the AI Observatory dashboard.
Smart Island Hits 23 Datasets, Adds IoT Sensors & Broadband Data
A massive day — 23 datasets, CURA broadband statistics, live IoT sensors, and the MTG IoT Network goes online.
Where Does the Isle of Man Rank for Broadband Speed?
Using Ookla's global Speedtest data, we can now see exactly where the Isle of Man sits in the broadband speed rankings — and whether the £11.65m fibre investment paid off.
Four New Datasets: Ships, Weather, World Bank & Utilities
We've expanded Smart Island from 8 to 12 open datasets — adding the IoM Ship Registry, World Bank economic indicators, MUA utility tariffs, and live weather for 6 towns. Here's what's new.