NCDatajam, a gathering of 75+ technologists, entrepreneurs and business leaders, attacked the question of what can be done with the Open Data available from the City of Raleigh. Raleigh is one of the handful of American cities that gives citizens access to the data it collects.
The event on April 22-23 held at HubRaleigh began with descriptions of federal open data applications we already use like weather.com and the Global Positioning System(GPS). This data has been used to build better access to information by businesses such as the GPS tracking devices that many use in their vehicles daily.
Organizers urged participants to come up with applications using regional data to solve problems in the health, energy and education sectors. After a series of activities the ideas were whittled down to 11 and attendees committed to these teams. The teams have 90 days to flesh out the ideas and the best concepts will receive support including business coaching and technology. The final ideas will compete in September and be announced publicly.
Previous years have created projects like Trianglewiki, a community-centric website about the Triangle, SeeClickFix to report neighborhood problems such as potholes and get them fixed and Rgreenway, a free mobile application to ensure that you never get lost in Raleigh’s Greenways.
Projects proposed included a health dashboard where you can track and compare your health to national/local data, a public parking app; a traffic app that guides you on new routes based on trend analysis; real-time data on how your local representatives are voting; a rating system for schools and child-care centers and, a real-time water usage application for residents and landlords.
( Read more at: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/04/27/2850252/triangle-startup-mines-data-to.html#storylink=cpy)
The final presentations at the NC DataPalooza celebration, during Triangle Entrepreneurship Week on September 12 promise to bring more innovation into the hands of Triangle residents.
Stay tuned.