TriangleWiki

NC Datajam kicked off NC DataPalooza

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.

Selection session at NC Datajam
Selection session at NC Datajam

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.

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.

A Taste of CityCamp 2

Citycampteam
One CityCamp team at work

Bonner Gaylord of the Raleigh City Council, an advocate for open government, began by mentioning to Carlson’s

law—innovation that happens from the bottom-up is chaotic and smart while innovation that happens from the

top-down tends to be orderly but dumb. Incremental adjustments and the fail-forward orientation (bottom-up) is more effective that pre-planned and requisitioned (top-down) processes. Government and elected officials are generally risk-adverse, however those in government at City Camp are working against that mentality and bringing innovation to towns, cities and states.

 

People can get involved and be proactive instead of the usual reaction, which is to be reactive and angry with a government that is seen as not being effective.

 
CityCamp is partially or fully responsible for some successes in the city of Raleigh:

  • Feb 2012 resolution to open up the data and use open source to analyze software procurements
  • Launch of OpenRaleigh website and platform for the open data
  • Rgreenway uses SeeClickFix is designed for smartphones and functions as a guide to the Raleigh Greenway systems.
  • TriangleWiki, a community-centric website Wiki that allows people to enter information about the Triangle.
  • Code For America brigade deploying apps from other cities here in the Triangle
  • DataPalooza, an open-data competition sponsored by the White House that connects local experts, innovators, and entrepreneurs to relevant, clean data drawn from federal, state, and local resources.
  • SeeClickFix launched in 2011 allows users to take photos and report neighborhood issues and see them get fixed

These efforts are collaboration between City of Raleigh employees and early adopters like those at CityCamp these last two years.

Following these and other speakers, ideas were presented  and participants voted on the top 20.