[open-government] What Does $3.2M Buy in Open Government?

Wed Jul 17 09:59:26 UTC 2013

*Guest post on the Open Knowledge Foundation blog:*

What Does $3.2M Buy in Open Government?
July 16, 2013 in Exemplars <http://blog.okfn.org/category/exemplars/>, Open
Government Data <http://blog.okfn.org/category/open-government-data/>

*The following guest post is by Travis Korte from the Information
Technology & Innovation Foundation <http://www.itif.org/>.*

[image: Still from GitMachines’ submission
video]<http://blog.okfn.org/2013/07/16/what-does-3-2m-buy-in-open-government/>

The Knight Foundation received hundreds of submissions to its “Knight News
Challenge on Open
Gov.,”<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/gitmachines-the-open-government-virtual-machine-depot/>
a
competition designed to create new tools to improve how citizens interact
with government. The applicants noted a number of problems with government
data: *confusing interfaces* for government data portals, *poor public
understanding* of proposed policies, *inaccessible* court records, *strict
security regulations* impeding civic hacking projects, *poor visualization* of
government data and a *lack of information* about municipal projects.

Last month, the Foundation awarded over $3.2 million to eight
winners<http://www.knightfoundation.org/press-room/press-release/open-government-projects-receive-more-32-million-w/>.
Here’s a round-up of what they do:

   - Procure.io<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/procure.io/>:
   The Oakland and Atlanta-based organization will produce a *streamlined
   procurement system* for government contracts. Using a simple interface,
   government officials will be able to submit requests for proposal to a
   publicly accessible and easily indexed database. By simplifying the
   contracting process, Procure.io stands to broaden the pool of applicants
   and encourage lower bids.
   - Outline.com<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/outline.com-model-the-impacts-of-any-public-policy-on-your-economy/>:
   This Cambridge, MA-based “policy simulation” startup will let users input
   their age, income and other general details on a website and then use
   sophisticated economic models to output a positive or negative dollar
   amount that represents their expected net *income change as a result of
   a proposed policy*. Outline will also provide a transparent
   version-control system to catalog changes in various policies.
   - Oyez<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/opening-appellate-courts/>:
   Founded in 1997 at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, Oyez has overseen
   successful *digitization initiatives* for U.S. Supreme Court documents,
   and now hopes to apply the same model to *state supreme courts*. The
   effort will collect, catalog, standardize, annotate and release to the
   public the records of the courts of the five largest states (CA, FL, IL,
   NY, and TX). The organization will also work to annotate the records with
   metadata and plain-English summaries, in partnership with local
   “public-spirited institutions.”
   - GitMachines<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/gitmachines-the-open-government-virtual-machine-depot/>:
   The Washington, DC-based team will provide free, cloud-based virtual
   machines that are compliant with NIST and GSA software standards and come
   *pre-configured with commonly used open government tools* such as the
   Apache Tomcat web server and data workflow management tool Drake. By
   offering these servers from a central, virtual depot, GitMachines will also
   reduce costs associated with ad hoc server-side IT staffing.
   - Civic Insight<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/civic-insight-open-gov-data-v2.0/>:
   Building off their work on BlightStatus <http://blightstatus.nola.gov/>,
   an urban blight data visualization tool for New Orleans, the San
   Francisco-based Civic Insight will expand the scope of their *dynamic
   mapping* solution, working with other cities on applications
related to *economic
   development and public health*.
   - Plan in a Box<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/plan-in-a-box-excellent-websites-for-neighborhood-projects./>:
   A Philadelphia- and New York-based team will build a web *publishing
   platform designed for municipal planning activities*. Aimed at
   geographically-constrained projects in small and medium-sized cities, Plan
   in a Box will offer a centralized news and feedback repository, with mobile
   and social integration. Organizers hope to enable effective communications
   without any costly web design or excessive configuration on the part of
   city officials.
   - Smart Communities – Pushing Government
Open<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/open-gov-for-the-rest-of-us-/>:
   The Chicago branch of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation offers a
   three-pronged approach to grow *the community’s capacity to participate
   in and take advantage of future open data initiatives*: 1) attract more
   internet users by providing classes and job training 2) promote currently
   available open data by introducing existing data projects on neighborhood
   web portals and in special meetups and 3) meet with community members in
   five Chicago neighborhoods to prioritize and request additional open data.
   - OpenCounter<https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/winners/opencounter-set-up-shop-in-your-city/>:
   The City of Santa Cruz, CA and Code for America will *simplify the
   process of opening a small business* by developing an application
   programming interface (a set of protocols for building software using the
   OpenCounter platform), a mechanism for non-technical users to customize the
   website, and tools for site selection and project comparison. These tools
   will be added to the existing OpenCounter website, which provides a portal
   to the city’s business permitting process.

The winning entries provide a revealing glimpse into an emerging concern in
open government data projects: *what sorts of web infrastructure will be
necessary to allow more people to actually make use of the data?* Oyez
represented the only traditional digitization project among the winners;
others, such as Civic Insight and OpenCounter, trained their focus on the
post-digitization landscape, proposing projects to redesign the data
offerings that already exist.

The most ambitious projects took a further step back from data itself, and
proposed to address gaps in knowledge, skills and resources related to open
government that no amount of interface design is likely to fix. From
GitMachines, which will attempt to help surmount security obstacles to
government software adoption, to Smart Communities, which will promote data
literacy as a gateway to participation in open government, a common
question emerged. *Data is here; now what will we have to change about
ourselves and our institutions to make good use of it?*
------------------------------

*Travis Korte is a research analyst at the Information Technology &
Innovation Foundation <http://www.itif.org/> (ITIF), where he works on the
Data Innovation project. He has a background in journalism, computer
science and statistics. Prior to joining ITIF, he launched the Science
vertical of The Huffington Post and served as its Associate Editor,
covering a wide range of science and technology topics.*

*If you’re interested in Open Government Data, you should be on our Open
Government Data group <http://opengovernmentdata.org/>!*
Original blog post:
http://blog.okfn.org/2013/07/16/what-does-3-2m-buy-in-open-government/

If you would like to do a guest blog post on our blog, please get in touch (
blog at okfn.org).

-- 

Christian Villum

Community Manager, Open Government Data + Local Groups Network
skype: christianvillum  |  @villum <http://www.twitter.com/villum>
The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>
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