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.

An in-depth look at the Police Department’s expanding video surveillance efforts

When it comes to fighting crime, Philadelphia is undergoing a video revolution.

Within a few short years, the city is likely to be blanketed by a network of more than a thousand state-of-the-art, high resolution cameras, scanning high-crime areas, critical structures such as the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, SEPTA stops and inner city streets.

But this is only the beginning. The number of cameras on the network is expected to expand exponentially in the near future. City officials are working on ways to link their Police Department operation with surveillance cameras used by such parties as local universities and private businesses to create a super-network of public space surveillance that can feed images back to the video monitoring room at Police Headquarters at Eighth and Race Sts.

Technically Philly worked with former Inquirer metro columnist Tom Ferrick’s recently-launched public affairs news site Metropolis to take an in-depth look at the expanding program in a three-part series published this week. For more, check out the report on Metropolis:

Part One: A New Way To Combat Crime
Part Two: How Other Cities Make It Work
Part Three: How Technology Makes It Happen

Friday Q&A: Councilman Bill Green talks technology and Philly Charter

Early this week, Councilman Bill Green and five members of City Council introduced legislation that would change Philadelphia’s Charter to include a permanent Chief Information Officer.

As we reported, the bill would continue consolidation of the city’s Information Technology resources and it would require that the CIO develop annually a 5-year technology strategy, among other changes.

We spoke with Green on Monday to put into perspective the reason for the legislation and whether or not the bill represents concern for current Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank’s leadership. Green’s answers, after the jump.

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Councilman Green hosts alley field trip for dumpster RFID legislation

Councilman Bill Green shows an RFID tag and reader that could be used to enforce dumpster laws.

Technology can be a dirty business.

Councilman Bill Green, dressed in a pressed pinstripe suit and flip-up sunglasses, led reporters on a field trip this afternoon to an illegally fenced-in block of Center City that hides 30 unregistered dumpsters, he says.

The councilman was there to demonstrate a solution to tracking those dumpsters Radio-frequency identification or RFID medallions that will help the city regulate unlicensed and unlawful containers. Green introduced legislation in February that would require that trash containers are fitted with the UHF chipset.

There are currently about 5,700 dumpsters registered with the city that generate $261,480 in licensing fees. With new legislation, Green hopes that the city could collect more than $2 million in fees. Additionally, Green hopes to cash in on uncollected citations. As of 2008, the city is owed a half million dollars from containers that violated dumpster laws.

As a dozen members of construction crews watched a crowd surround Green on the 1600 block of Ionic Street, between Chestnut and Sansom streets, he pointed a handheld device at a small, business-card sized medallion attached to a graffiti-covered dumpster overflowing with broken-down cardboard boxes.

“Simply aim the gun, shoot it, and it brings up information on who owns [the dumpster],” he yelled into microphones over a cacophony of noise caused by nearby work.

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