About APPS09

What

“Apps for Democracy produced more savings for the D.C. government than any other initiative.” − Vivek Kundra, former CTO of Washington, DC and current Federal CIO

In the fall of 2008, DC’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer asked iStrategyLabs how it could make DC.gov’s revolutionary Data Catalog useful for the citizens, visitors, businesses and government agencies of Washington, DC. The Data Catalog contains all manner of open public data featuring real-time crime feeds, school test scores, and poverty indicators, and is the most comprehensive of its kind in the world.

Our solution was to create Apps for Democracy – a contest that cost Washington, DC $50,000 and returned 47 iPhone, Facebook and web applications with an estimated value in excess of $2,600,000 to the city.

Now, DC wants to hear citizens’ ideas about problems that could be solved through technology, as well as their ideas about the perfect system to receive feedback and service requests. Through blog posts, email surveys, video testimonials, voice call-in captures, twitter update submissions, and in-person town halls, iStrategyLabs will seek to engage the populace of Washington, DC to ask for their input into what they’d like to see in the form of a DC Community Platform.

Our goal is to receive insight from at least 5000 citizens of Washington, DC in a week period beginning May 4th (submit your insights here). iStrategyLabs will produce a citywide “Social Citizen Sunday” event on May 17th, during which people will be encouraged to capture insights from their neighbors. The team that captures the deepest and broadest insights possible will be rewarded with a $1000 “Social Citizen Award” and public recognition incentives for their participation.

Armed with comprehensive information about the needs of DC citizens that can be addressed with technology, we’ll engage citizen technologists to build the perfect technology solution to meet their needs. Technology developers will compete through 3 rounds of code jams with the following prize structures:

Round 1: First prize $3000, Second prize $2000
Round 2: First prize $3000, Second prize $2000
Final Round: First prize $10,000
Optional Grant: $14,000 over 9 months

The winning team has the opportunity to win $30,000 total.