If you need help, feel free to ask a question in the Apps for Democracy Google Group, or leave a comment on this post.

Good luck with your open data, open government, and civic hacking projects and keep me posted if you launch something so we can help spread the word about it!

-Peter Corbett (peter at istrategylabs dot com)

The guide is embedded below and you can download a pdf here:

Create an Apps for Democracy – Open Government Data Meets Citizen Innovation

This guide was shared in presentation format at CityCamp. That presentation can be found here and includes more graphics and examples:

Create an Apps for Democracy – #Citycamp Presentation

I’ve recorded a video of this presentation as I spoke through it at CityCamp:

“I thank all the creative citizens and technologists who answered our call for innovative ideas and applications. With the help of these homegrown innovators, we’re engaging the community in government and building a digital democracy model for governments everywhere.” – District Interim CTO Chris Willey.

Today District of Columbia Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Interim Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Chris Willey announced the winning entries in the District’s second “Apps for Democracy” innovation contest.

The contest, launched on May 4, 2009, invited residents and software developers to compete for cash prizes for ways to improve city service requests.  The competition replicates the highly successful results of the first  Apps for Democracy contest last year, which invited the public to compete in developing applications to make District government data more accessible and useful for the public.  The 2008 contest produced 47 innovative and useful applications in 30 days at a total cost of only $50,000.

The Apps for Democracy, Community Edition competition had two parts.

The first part of the contest asked citizens to offer ideas about how technology can improve government operations and the community. 230+ insights are here.

The second part of the contest challenged developers to create applications that make it easier to submit online requests for city services such as vacant property inspections, tree removals, street repairs, non-emergency public safety assistance, and others.  The applications were required to use open source programming.  Developers could access the District’s over 270 public data feeds and could use the District’s new 311 API (Application Programming Interface), aka “Open 311,” which allows users to build custom applications for submitting service requests.  The District is the first city in the world to launch an Open 311.

The contest attracted nearly 230 insightful ideas and innovative applications.  Entries were judged by an appointed jury representing the District government, the technology community, and the media.  Participating judges were:
•    Kevin Donahue, DC CapStat Director
•    Janice Quintana, Director, DC Office of Unified Communications
•    Chris Willey, DC Interim CTO (OCTO)
•    Peter Corbett, CEO, iStrategyLabs
•    Brendan Sweeney, Producer, WAMU, Kojo Nnamdi Show

The judges chose the winning entries based on criteria including usefulness to citizens, usefulness to government, and originality.

And the winner is!

Final Round:

The $10,000 prize winner is the team of Victor Shilo, Roman Zolin, and Andrey Andreev for their innovative app that enables iPhone access (download from iTunes) to the District’s 311 city service site, coupled with a supporting Facebook App.  Users can submit and view service requests by category, view service requests by location on an interactive map, provide details on their requests through an interactive Q&A feature, and even visit a “Hall of Fame” to see who has submitted the most requests.

The ability to use the iPhone’s GPS capabilities and built in camera to map specific issues (like potholes, broken parking meters etc.) is very promising from both a city management, and citizen service perspective.

You can view a demo here:

An Honorable Mention goes to Zvi Band and Zach Goodwin for FixMyCityDC, a web-based application that allows users to submit service requests by problem type, and check their status via an interactive map.  The app also offers the option of a phone call to the user when the problem has been resolved.

In addition to the prize, the winning team will receive a grant to support their application for the next nine months. FixMyCityDC, the DC 311 iPhone app, and the Facebook app will be combined to create a seamless, mobile/social/web solution tentatively called “DC Open 311″ . All of the applications will be released with open source licenses and can be used freely by governments and the public.

Background info:

The winners for Round 1 and Round 2 leading up to this year’s final around can be found here: Round 1 Winners – Round 2 Winners

All applications developed during Apps for Democracy can be found in our Application Directory.

A video interview of Chris Willey, Interim CTO of Washington DC was recently interviewed about the impact of Apps for Democracy:

A full overview video of Apps for Democracy “Community Edition” is here:

The final round of Apps for Democracy “Community Edition” is now closed. Applications that were submitted will be judged the week of 7/6/2009 and an announcement of the final winner will be made the week of 7/13/2009.

Thank you to all participants thus far – there are some really interesting approaches to integrating DC’s Open 311 API and we’re looking forward to announcing the final $10,000 prize winner soon.

Last year’s medal winners can be found here, Apps for Democracy “Community Edition” Round 1 winners are here, and the Round 2 winners are here.

The full prizes structure of Community Edition is as follows:

App for Democracy “Community Edition” Round 2 just wrapped up and we’re excited to share the following results with you (Final Round submissions are due at Midnight on 7/1):

The $3,000 First Place prize goes to Shaun Farrell for vacantDC! which focuses on using DC Open 311 API to map all vacant buildings in Washington, DC. A demo of the app can be found here:

The $2,000 Second Place prize goes to Victor Shilo, Roman Zolin, and Andrey Andreev for their innovative use of an iPhone application that deeply integrates DC’s Open 311 API. This application one first prize in the first round, and has added some interesting Facebook integrations. A demo of the iPhone App can be found here:

Additional applications were submitted are as follows:

Katie Filbert submitted “DC CitiStat”:

Zvi Band and Zach Goodwin Submitted “FixMyDC“:

Guille Carlos, Kris Steigerwald, Christophe Lucas, Luc Castera, Ashish Tonse, Chris Musialek,  and Guille Carlos submitted Easy311:

The SeeClickFix team submitted a DC version of their application:

There’s still a $10,000 Final Round prize for the best application developed. The city will then determine if an additional $14,000 grant should be provided to that winner over the following 9 months. Submit your final round application by midnight on July 1st here.

Good luck and thank you to everyone who’s participated thus far!

-Peter @Corbett3000

The $3,000 First Place prize goes to Victor Shilo, Roman Zolin, and Andrey Andreev for their innovative use of an iPhone application that deeply integrates DC’s Open 311 API. A demo of the iPhone App can be found here:

The $2,000 Second Place prize goes to Katie Filbert for her approach using a wiki based architecture with DC’s Open 311 API integration. Her application “DC CitiStat” can be found here:

The SeeClickFix team has been granted an honorable mention for their Google Maps service request submission approach:

Additional beta applications that have promise include…

Seo Cial’s Pligg based submission system:

Guille Carlos, Kris Steigerwald, Christophe Lucas, Luc Castera, Ashish Tonse, Chris Musialek,  and Guille Carlos made a Ruby based site:

And last but not least, Jerry Brito, Kevin Dwyer and Peter Snyder’s “MetroScout” which has the beginnings of a Facebook Connect approach:

Each team will be getting specific feed back from me and the OCTO team so look for that in your inbox. Also, keep in mind the following:

-You can submit to Round 2 (App prototypes due at midnight on June 21st) even if you didn’t submit for round 1 and there are another $3000 and $2000 in first and second place prizes available. All Round 1 apps are eligible for Round 2 and should be resubmitted with improvements when you’re ready.

-You can also skip Round 2 and submit for only the final round ($10,000 final prize)…but you’ll lose out on getting feedback from the city that will give you a leg up towards creating a better and perhaps winning entry

-If the final prize winner is of sufficient quality, the city will provide a grant administered via iStrategyLabs of $14,000 over 9 months for further iteration an support of the app

So, there’s still $29,000 out there that’s up for grabs.

Good luck and thank you to everyone who’s participated thus far!

-Peter @Corbett3000

1) Use http://apps09.eventbrite.com/ and select the “Submit Application” Ticket. You’ll be asked for an App Name, URL, Description and Feedback on the API. If you are not submitting a live beta of your application – and will be providing screenshots for iphone apps etc. – please send us a link to the document or email it to peter@istrategylabs.com. If you need to talk through a demonstration of your application, please record it and send a link – and as a last resort, use the description section of the ticket to request a 10min. demo call.

2) Two client libraries have been created by @skeevis (a Ruby Gem) and @technosailor (a PHP library) for all to enjoy. Please consider contributing back to the DC Open 311 API during the course of this competition if you feel compelled to.

3) If you have questions/ideas use the google group, and make sure you sign up on the main Apps for Democracy eventbrite (http://apps09.eventbrite.com/) so you’ll get future updates between now and the end of the contest.

You do not have to have attended the code jam in order to submit an application for Round 1 consideration – nor do you have to submit something for Round 1 in order to be considered for Round 2 and/or the Final Round (i.e. if you only submit to the Final Round you’re eligible to win it).

-Peter

On May 17th, citizens from around DC reached out to their neighbors to discuss the problems and ideas they had which could be addressed with technology. We’re happy to announce that our $1000 Social Citizen Award goes to Shireen Mitchell and Jill Foster for their in depth, multi-media presentation which you can see here:

Perhaps we should have had multiple prizes in this category, as we’re appreciative of the effort put forth so many. Here are a few more entries/insights that you might find interesting:

• American Ballad’s “KISS it’s the People” report.
• Tegy Thomas’ “Social Entrepreneur Hub” currently leads all voting in the Insights Section
• Jeremy wants Apps for Democracy to be for the greater capital area, not just dc:
• Elizabeth is concerned about access to 311 outside of the city:
• Andrew wants to get text messages when police helicopters are in the area:

There’s much more (220+ additional insights) here!

Wordle Cloud of Insights Submitted to Apps for Democracy Community Edition

Three short weeks ago, we announced Apps for Democracy “Community Edition” with the intention of using the month of May as an insights collection period that would inform our technology development period in June.  We’ve been using online and offline methods to gather input from as many citizens as possible. Last Sunday was “Social Citizen Sunday” where neighbors were encouraged to talk to one another about the problems and ideas they have that can be addressed through better technology.

Here are some statistics related to the ‘insights portal‘ we setup using Uservoice:

-112 insights submitted in the first 7 days

-232 total insights

-1,086 total voters

-5,308 total votes

These insights will be summarized into a “Citizen Driven Technology Requirements” document that will be shared with developers who’ll be competing to build the best community platform for DC with integration of the city’s Open 311 API – the first of it’s kind in the country. If you’re haven’t signed up yet to compete for the $34,000 in potential prizes, please do so here.

A full summary of these insights is here:
Apps for Democracy Insights Summary

In fact, we’ve been collecting insights online, and in the first 7 days, 140+ insights were submitted – you can read, vote on and submit your own insights here.

To participate in Social Citizen Sunday, just sign up here, and ask some friends to join you (or go it alone). There’s a $1000 prize for the best field report!

Here’s what you’ll need to do on Sunday:

1) Go to a library, church or another busy public area

2) Let people know you’re helping the city by collecting insights from your neighbors

3) Ask if they can answer this one question for you “What problems or ideas do you have for DC that you think better technology can solve?” If you can, please ask “Do you have access to high speed internet and if so, where?”

4) The answers you gather in #3 are what you’ll put into a ‘field report’. That report can take any form – video, audio, powerpoint/PDF etc. The $1000 prize will be judged based on the following:

• Quality of responses gathered
• Diversity of responses (different answers from different people in different neighborhoods)
• Quantity of responses
• Uniqueness of your field report

5) Submit your report to me via email (attachment or link to something)

All field reports are due one week from Social Citizen Sunday on 5/24 by midnight (that’s Memorial Day weekend so you might want to finish the report earlier). Feel free to collect insights during the week following Social Citizen Sunday. Also let us know what neighborhoods your insights came from.

TIPS FOR INSIGHTS COLLECTION:

1) Create a Google Form, so you can use it on your laptop or mobile phone as you talk to people.

2) Use a tool like Utterli or Tumblr to ‘live blog’ the insights you capture for later use in your report.

3) Use Twitter with the #APPS09 hashtag and and your own hashtag so you can go back and reference those tweets (you can use twitter to capture insight from anyone this way too).

4) Use a Mino Flip cam, a laptop with web cam, cell phone video cam or another video device for grabbing quick interviews.

Please leave any questions in the comments on this post so other can benefit from the answers.