Digital agency iStrategyLabs and The District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) held a contest last month with the goal of "visualizing DC’s public data". The competition was to reward technology developers with creating applications useful for the DC government and the citizens, visitors and businesses.
The "Apps for Democracy" contest also was designed to serve as a catalyst to visualize OCTO’s data so it will be useful to those living in DC, improving their quality of life; foster innovation in the DC technology community resulting in startup formation and growth; solve the technology challenges of OCTO through more cost-effective open collaboration; and work towards a new model for government/private sector/citizen cross collaboration that can be utilized repeatedly to solve OCTO’s challenges and serve as an example for other municipalities.
The contest featured 60 cash prizes totalling $20,000. Developers and designers competed by creating web applications, widgets, Google Maps-mashups (and other maps mash-ups), iPhone apps, Facebook apps, and other digital utilities.
The contest was part of the "drive toward digital democracy in the nation’s capital,” said District CTO Vivek Kundra. “Especially in these difficult economic times, it’s crucial to the government’s mission to find more efficient and impactful methods for delivering an even higher level of service for a fraction of the cost. We are ushering in a new age of participatory democracy, one in which technology is developed by the people for the people.”