[kictanet] Examples Open Data in New York

[Paul Kukubo]

Listers

Sorry for cross posting. This article appearing on mashable.com online
is very interesting in illustrating how open data can be deployed. As
Kenya is the first country in Africa to open up it's data, we must
seek examples that encourage our entrepreneurs and our policy makers
as well. Enjoy..

Local Governments Motivate App Developers With Contests
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 04:42 PM  |  Sarah Kessler

The past two years, New York City has hosted contests for mobile apps
that use city data. Now New York State’s Metropolitan Transportation
Authority (MTA) is launching a similar contest of its own.

A number of cities, including Washington, D.C., and San Francisco,
have made their data publicly available. It makes sense: Apps that
improve parking situations or make public transportation easier to
navigate benefit the city without sucking its resources.

But New York City, and now New York State, are some of the first
governments to add a contest to the process in order to incentivize
developers to make such apps.

To be eligible for “MTA App Quest” and its $15,000 in cash prizes, the
biggest requirement is that apps need to use at least one of the MTA’s
data sets.

The MTA first posted databases online for developer use in January
2010, and 40 or so apps have been created using the data. But many of
these, like NYC Way [iTunes link], were entries in New York City’s
BigApps contest, which borrowed several MTA databases.

For its own contest, the MTA has released six new or updated data
sets, including one that shows where platforms, elevators, turnstiles
and station agent booths are located inside subway stations.

Beyond that, the two contests are pretty similar, despite one being
run by the city and the other by the state. The MTA has partnered with
the same contest platform that NYC did, ChallengePost.

In this case, ChallengePost is putting up the prize money for the
contest. Usually, it collects money to run crowdsourcing contests for
clients like the World Bank and Michelle Obama. ChallengePost CEO
Brandon Kessler says that NYC was the first city to use a contest on
his platform for an open data app contest.

Now that New York State has also caught on to the publicity method, we
wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not the last.

More About: BigApps, MTA, new york, public transportation



Paul Kukubo
CEO Kenya ICT Board
Kenya ICT Board Facebook:KenyaICTBoard, tweeter: @TANDAAKenya
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Paul Kukubo
Chief Executive Officer, Kenya ICT Board
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