Comments on: NYC BigApps contest winners announced; Avencia not included

By: Technically Philly » Azavea submits BusMinder for Massachusetts Department of Transportation contest | Covering the Community of People Who Use Technology in Philadelphia.

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:54:42 +0000

[...] than a month after chasing New York City’s BigApps contest, an Azavea developer has his eyes set on winning a challenge from the Massachusetts Department of [...]

By: Technically Philly » Where’s the data? A ten-year old problem, city CTO says | Covering the Community of People Who Use Technology in Philadelphia.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:18:39 +0000

[...] like New York — which opened an impressive amount of city datasets for public use, and sponsored a $20,000 contest to attract software developers to create interesting technology applications and web apps — are pressing ahead with new data [...]

By: Technically Philly » Avencia becomes Azavea, relents on trademark dispute, to launch redesigned site | Covering the Community of People Who Use Technology in Philadelphia.

Fri, 07 May 2010 00:07:15 +0000

[...] estate data, partnered with Common Cause to lend transparency to local campaign contributions and tried to march up to New York City and win its BigApps contest with a tool that tracks the walkability of [...]

By: Christopher Wink

Christopher Wink — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:10:54 +0000

I guess then the question is if this is the best way to bring in novel ideas: a contest for cash. The eventual victor didn’t actually offer anything in the way of government transparency — instead, directions to subway stops.

To be fair, this particular tool from Avencia wasn’t explicitly for reducing government waste or the like either.

Indeed, both — and many of the other participants — probably fall more into the novel category than transformative.

But yes, as you said Josh, we’re new to this game of tech teasing out government data, and it’s an exciting time. We hope to see Philadelphia take a big step into this space.
-cgw

By: Josh Tauberer

Josh Tauberer — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:44:24 +0000

Too bad for Avencia! I’m sure they put in a good showing.

” Can real implementation and change be expected? Is this a novelty or something the city of Philadelphia should seriously consider? ”

There’s certainly a novelty factor here. Most small-scale software projects don’t turn into long-term, sustainable products, and when you run a contest that encourages relatively small-scale projects you have to expect that this will happen often.

That said, I don’t think this is any reason not to keep doing it. We’re still at an early phase of the open government and civic hacking movement and no one knows where this will lead. Trying out and encouraging new things is an important part of exploring what tech can do for us here.