In June 2011, I stood in Kastrup Airport with my three daughters, coming to Denmark to stay. My husband had already arrived; my dog was on the way. Both my husband and I had left good careers and a great life in order to allow me to fulfill my dream of pursuing a PhD. I have to say, I was very apprehensive at this moment. My (then) 16year-old daughter had decided to stay with her father and continue her education in Iceland, and the prospect of being separated from her was next to unbearable. Moreover, I had absolutely no idea how to get into a PhD program. Prior to coming to Denmark, I had sent a couple of emails and gotten quite unenthusiastic responses. Fortunately, a few days before leaving I happened to run into a former colleague, Agnar Hanson. Agnar offered to introduce me to a professor he had collaborated with at CBS, Niels Bjørn-Andersen.To get an opportunity to meet with Niels Bjørn was truly a turning event for me. Without his kind nature, willingness to help, great network and clear insight into interesting research areas I suppose I would never even have started. After meeting him, it only took a couple of meetings before we had ensured the financial support of a large IT vendor in Denmark, KMD. We resolved that I would study a very interesting e-Government program in Denmark, the Basic Data Program (BDP). The BDP is an Open Data Initiative, led by the Danish Agency for Digitization, which also agreed to participate as a third party. After "only" a couple of hundreds of emails, everything was in place, and we sent an application to the Industrial PhD fund. The (second) application was approved in June 2012, exactly a year after my arrival in Denmark. July 1 st 2012, I started to work on my dissertation called The Sustainable Value of Open Government Data. These last three years have been the most challenging but also most rewarding years of my carrier. It is a bit like running an intellectual marathon, and I did hit some walls on the way. Suffice to say, this is not a tale of one woman's journey. I have so many people to thank who have helped me on the way, and all of them have provided something unique to this project. Thus, I will go through my list of acknowledgements in no particular order.The only one who will get a special place is Professor Niels Bjørn-Andersen, as without him this project would never have been born. He spent an incredible amount of energy and time to get me to the starting line, which is not a very rewarding process. I hope he knows that I have not, and never will, forget his help and his kindness. He also To all of you, THANK YOU! If not for all these wonderful people, I doubt I would have managed to finish this journey successfully.
