OHAI,

We’re planning a civic hacking fest happening in April, 2010 and you’re invited.

Ottawa is getting on board with open data, and we want apps that showcase how fantastic that is.

Open data apps? I’m talking about OC Transpo.net (the unofficial guide),EveryBlock, VanTrash, FixMyStreet, Stumble Safely,San Francisco Crimespotting, How SF Votes, and all sorts of other great apps that make use of public municipal data to help citizens kick ass.

Actually, we specifically want apps, a hackfest, and you to be there. It’s going to be fun, your work will make the city a better place, and when the media picks this thing up, you will have lots of people playing with your app. You’re also going to meet all sorts of interesting people who you might be able to collaborate with in the future, and the app you build will last for a long time.

You should come.

Where is it going to be?We’re aiming to have it in the public space of Ottawa City Hall. (Thanks for the idea Rod!)

How is this going to work?This event is going to happen in April and we’re planning for media coverage. We really want to show off usable apps at this point, so we have to start working on them as soon as possible.
Sometime in March we’re going to have a meetup to confirm which data sets are available, figure out who’s working on which apps, and set a hard date for the hackfest event.

That sounds lovely! I’m a developer.Great. So far, we don’t know which datasets are open. For the time being, we’re going to develop with dummy data, open data from Vancouver or another city, or we’ll have to (gently) scrape it from the web.

Sign me up. I’m a designer.If you help out to make something snazzy, I will award you with a copy of Photoshop that will never crash.* We need people like you to make the rest of our work look amazing, feel intuitive, and have a smooth user experience. You know the drill.

Fantastic! I’m a librarian.Sweet. I heard you guys like books and eat catalogs of data for breakfast. You beautiful people are going to scour the earth for interesting data, help the rest of us figure out what’s important, and generally be useful. I envision you as data-seeking Eyes of Sauron minus the obvious Visine issues and otherpersonal issues.

YES! I AM A STATISTICIANYES! YOU ARE SO NEEDED. Seriously. While we can find it, blow it up, calculate it, and make it look pretty, we needs us some mean number crunchin’ to present meaningful visualizations. Join up.

I… am a proud citizen.We need you the most. If it weren’t for you, this whole thing wouldn’t be happening. We need ideas, cheerleaders, and friends to spread the word.

Who’s behind this?Right now it’s @pushmatrix, @bethmaru, myself (@edwardog), and all the other people have shown interest when I came up with this thing at an Ottawa Ruby meeting.

Interested?Follow @opendataottawa on Twitter. We’ll drop you a line with news as it happens.

Want to start helping?

• Come up with an idea for an app and add it to our ideas page. If you’re not sure what’s in the realm of possibility, take a look at other cities’ data sets and think about a service that’d help you kick ass as a citizen. Check out New York City’s Big Apps contest or Washington DC’s Apps for Democracy for inspiration.
• Check out the wiki and start contributing by adding links to data sets, open data apps of note, or other useful and open-data-related information.
• Find out which Ottawa data sets are going to be available, who to talk to at the City of Ottawa, and get us in touch with them through Twitter or by emailing us.

Looking forward to high-fiving you when you show up,

Edward Ocampo-Gooding
@edwardog / @opendataottawa

PS – The proud citizen organizers of this event nor the event itself are actually affiliated with the City of Ottawa. This is very unofficial and very awesome.

* Actually, I can’t, and I’m very sorry. But I will dry your tears as Photoshop reliably crashes every. single. time.