OpenDataRace: contest from OpenDataPhilly to partner city data and nonprofits

A new contest launching today solicits votes on what currently obscured city data should be made open.

Dubbed the OpenDataRace by those behind the nascent OpenDataPhilly.org, the project this month solicits nominations of civic-orientated city data sets paired with relevant nonprofit missions. Next month, votes will be cast trumpeting what data sets most interest Philadelphians, with $3,500 in small cash prizes for the nonprofits connected to the three winning entries.

Find the brief nomination form HERE.

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‘There’s a new breed of software developer helping local government:’ Governing magazine

Governing magazine on Code for America and the movement it represents:

As recently as 2008, few developers were thinking about writing software code, or “coding,” for cities. Now, interest in partnerships between independent software developers and cities has exploded. “This space was totally brand new and early, and it was very, very insidery,” says Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs, a media agency in Washington, D.C. Corbett is the co-creator of Apps for Democracy, a contest in which developers competed for cash prizes to develop the best apps using city data from the District of Columbia. The first contest, in 2008, produced nearly 50 applications in the course of a month, at a cost of $50,000. The highly publicized event triggered a series of copycat contests in the U.S. and around the globe. MORE