Roadkill and Apps for Democracy — Liveblogging #pfgov symposium

Chris Willey, CTO, District of Columbia
Apps for Democracy

Killer app, so to speak, is the DC-centric “Roadkill Reporter”: http://0009.org/roadkill/

The story:
The imperative: democratize data
The problem: Data Accessibility for All
The Solution: Apps for Democracy 2008 (open source tools in 30 days)
Gold Prize Winner: DC Historic Tours
Digital Public Square: dps.dc.gov

We received 47 apps in 30 days — our cost was only $50k
Benefits to the Government
5,000% ROI
We got great, useful, helpful civic tools at a fraction of the price, assuming we’d thought of all of them.

We’re under consideration for a United Nations Public Service award.

What we learned: compare 2008 with 2009 process to see what we learned
2008:
Open data
Gov sponsorship
contest framework
launch and run
award

2009
Problem sourcing
Open data
Gov sponsorship
contest framework
launch and run
award
Support by Gov
Commercialization

Apps for Democracy 2009: Community Edition
1st 30-day process — collect feedback from citizens
2nd 30-day process — application development

The future:
Invest further in social government
Economic development
Open data –> open requirements

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Robin Paoli

I agree, Michael! It taps into the skill sets of citizens who are passionate about their neighborhoods and cities (and even the country as a whole), and have good, implement-able ideas.