Where’s the data? A ten year old problem, city CTO says

For all the city information technology issues that Allan Frank addresses daily, its perhaps the availability of transparent city data that plagues him most publicly.

Sure, IT consolidation efforts mandated by mayoral executive order — which have transformed the Division of Technology from an agency once one-fifth the size it is now — have been a priority for Frank, the city’s Chief Technology Officer.

But often, the cry from the city’s industrious technology community has been one caused by a national intrigue in government transparency that tech can facilitate.

Cities 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 initiatives.

But Philadelphia lags behind. The city’s first big data win came when SEPTA released raw data around station geolocation and schedules, well after developers took their own stab at collecting data — by scraping HTML pages. Since, we’ve seen little movement from either developers or the city.

When we first covered Frank in May last year, he spoke before a crowd of Refresh Philly attendees and gave them a charge to come up with data they wanted. The effort dwindled, due in part to a lack of movement in the community and too, on actionable steps from the city.

Now, as Frank enters his first fiscal year with a serious $120 million capital investment in city technology, we’re wondering what’s next.

Late last week, we met with the CTO to discuss problems plaguing the department around opening those datasets and followed-up with Frank about how things have been for the last year, his first in public office. After the jump, that conversation.

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Philly Is “Gigabit City” (with or without Google)

Last week, Google thanked the 1,100 applicants who entered its Google Fiber for Communities contest, an initiative to test high-speed, next generation broadband — known as ‘gigabit’ fiber — that is up to 100 times faster than current average household Internet connections. As we’ve written in this column before, Google plans to wire between 50,000 and a half-million households with gigabit, an experiment which could have broad implications for technological innovation and national broadband policy.

The thank-you was but a tease for Philly’s technology community, which, as part of the City’s application to the Google Fiber for Communities contest, created “Gigabit City,” a repository where folks brainstorm specific projects that may be possible with gigabit technology. Like everyone else, they’ll have to wait until Google announces the winners in the fall, but City of Philadelphia Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank isn’t sitting around. He’s turned the city’s application into an opportunity to engage Philadelphia around next-generation broadband policy.

In the process, he’s been able to push the city’s telecommunication heavies  — Comcast and Verizon — to consider Philadelphia’s future.

Read the full story over at Philly Mag’s Philly post.

City CTO explains why 311 iPhone app is two months late

Last week, we wrote that Philadelphia’s planned 311 iPhone app — which would allow folks to submit complaints and ask questions to the city’s citizen-serving 311 agency — was two months late.

In a conversation last week, city Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank responded to some of the specifics of the article, which posited alternatives to in-house development of the application and challenged the city to take advantage of free app technologies and to turn to Philadelphia’s talented and civic-focused developers for help.

Frank said that contrary to statements in the article, the application hasn’t cost taxpayers anything — it’s been a labor of love for several employees in the department — and that the city did research low-cost and free, third-party options but found that its solution was the strongest.

So, then, why is it two months late?

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Philly Post: Philly 311 – There’s no app for that

Last week, while the City of Philadelphia was busy celebrating the country’s 234th birthday, another anniversary passed by with little fanfare. July 5 marked three months since the city announced it was developing its own 311 iPhone application to allow citizens to access city data on the go. It also marked the day the application was two months late.

In an April 5 announcement, Division of Technology chief Allan Frank said the application would be available in May, yet there’s still no sign of it on the city’s 311 site or in the App Store.

While we’re certainly on board with city government embracing new technologies, there were several alternatives to the city developing the application itself that would have sped up its development and saved precious taxpayer dollars.

Read more at Philly Mag’s Philly Post.

Code for America chooses Philly for web development team

It seems as though the City of Philadelphia will get a helping hand in its quest to move forward with the growing list of possibility in Web transparency and government openness.

As expected, Philadelphia was chosen as one of five cities to receive the work of a team of Web developers and technologists as part of the inaugural Code for America class.

Starting in January 2011, the organization, which founder Jen Pahlka called something of a Teach for America for online government application development, will give each city a top tech team of developers, designers, and product managers for an entire year to build out their dream application that drives transparency and participation within the city and its government.

Mashable reports that Philadelphia’s project will be an ‘Open311-type project.’ No word yet on how that relates to the 311 application that City technology honcho Allan Frank had pledged could be completed this month.

Winning is not entirely free, as WHYY reported in a follow up on our interview with Pahlka. The city would put out $225,000 for expenses, though CFA organizers say the talent they receive will exceed $1 million.

The other winning cities are Boston, Washington D.C., Seattle and Boulder, Colo.

If we could design Philadelphia’s 311 iPhone App

In an informal partnership with Philadelphia magazine‘s new Philly Post daily news blog, Technically Philly will be offering our insight on Philadelphia technology to a broader audience of tech-interested individuals every Tuesday. As is true of so much of our effort, this is yet another opportunity to voice the triumphs and concerns of the community to a broader audience in the city and beyond.

Yesterday it was revealed that the City of Philadelphia is developing an iPhone application for its 311 non-emergency call system that will allow users to submit requests for city services using an Apple smartphone.

As city Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank told the Inquirer, users will be able to track and retrieve the same information they can from the city’s 311 telephone service. The mobile interface, though, will allow for more, like snapping a photograph of a pothole to request that it be filled. Frank hopes the application will launch next month as a bare-bones preview of what’s to come, before the “rocket-science stuff.”

Though Frank is vague about the future of the software, we’ve got some initial suggestions for what could be easily (and not-so-easily) implemented and advice for the city programmers tasked with developing it.

Read more at Philly Mag’s Philly Post.

City to release free 311 iPhone application

The City of Philadelphia will release a free iPhone app for its 311 non-emergency call hotline as soon as next month, reports the Inquirer.

City Technology Chief Allan Frank is painting a bold picture for the application, which he tells the Inqy will let users “log requests for city services and track them from their phones.”

“Anything you can do with 311 when you call, you’ll be able to do on your iPhone, and then some. OK, you can take a picture of, say, the illegal dump with the iPhone, and you can geo-locate it for us with the iPhone. All that fancy stuff,” Frank said.

Frank says future edition will become more sophisticated, trumping other cities that have already released similar apps.

Division of Technology’s $120 million budget laid out to City Council

In an informal partnership with Philadelphia magazine‘s new Philly Post daily news blog, Technically Philly will be offering our insight on Philadelphia technology to a broader audience of tech-interested individuals every Tuesday. As is true of so much of our effort, this is yet another opportunity to voice the triumphs and concerns of the community to a broader audience in the city and beyond.

Last Tuesday, city chief technology officer Allan Frank laid out the Division of Technology’s unprecedented six-year, $120 million budget in a hearing before City Council.

The sizable investment is a commitment to an executive order announced last July when Frank’s staff was more than tripled to 520 employees and plans were put in place to consolidate resources, improve technology infrastructure and streamline city services.

It is, in our opinion, absolutely necessary. As Frank told Council, according to the Daily News: “The world changed, but the city never changed.”

Read more at Philly Mag’s Philly Post.

Google ultra high speed fiber application closes today, attention picks up

Nearly one month after the announcement came at Ignite Philly, widespread attention for the City of Philadelphia applying to partner with Google on its proposed ultra-high speed internet experiment has finally come.

The deadline for applications is today. That has led local politicians scrambling to social media to sure up their tech credentials and community support, and, yes, a Philadelphia media binge.

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Links: Allan Frank gives budget hearing, Philebrity’s Joey Sweeney on flash mobs and More

DEFINITE READS

• The Daily News reports on city Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank‘s Tuesday budget hearing before CIty Council and his push to move the municipal government forward in areas like paperless time sheets.
• PlanPhilly has a piece on the importance of the 2010 U.S. Census to Philadelphia, particularly in a municipal services and business image perspective.
• Blake Jennelle, co-founder of Philly Startup Leaders, has hit the road promoting his missoneurship concept blending nonprofit missions and for-profit entrepreneurship, teaching at the European Creative Cities Conference and hosting meetups.
• The Inquirer has a piece on some of the sights and sounds of SXSW, including Center City-based mobile payment service Venmo.

Below, a study finds financial incentive gave GSK drugs positive treatment from scientists, Philebrity’s Joey Sweeney talks flash mobs and more.

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