Sunlight Foundation Funds Six "Apps for America"
Chips, dip and government data are everyone's three favorite things to take to a party, right? Ok, so government data is actually quite boring on its own, but in these exciting times of democratized programming, government data can be turned into some pretty exciting mashups.
That's just what the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation is aiming to make more possible with its work to make government and related data more available with its new Apps for America contest. More than 40 open source applications and websites making use of that data entered the contest and today the six fabulous winners were announced. We've got a five minute screencast tour of the winners below.
The six winners received between one and fifteen thousand dollars cash to support further development of their projects. Some of them look great already, others not so much. Winners include:
Fillibusted - a site aiming to hold filibustering Congresspeople accountable for their actions.
Legistalker - a site that tracks news, Twitter, YouTube and other online activity by and about members of Congress.
HelloCongress - like Digg for Congressional priorities, with a twist.
Know Thy Congressman - a beautiful informational pop-up about Congresspeople that you can invoke anywhere you find their names on the web.
Yeas and Nays - a sophisticated Firefox plug-in that helps you click-to-call members of Congress.
E-Paper Trail - a data rich site to compare and learn about Congresspeople.
There are also a number of Honorable Mentions included on the Sunlight contest page.
Some of these look more useful than others so far but with a little extra support who knows? It's an increasingly data-driven world, but in order to truly get the most value out of that data the web needs interface and mashup developers. That's why it's such a great idea for Sunlight to support these and other developers the way they do.
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hmm nicethx
the government's version of the y-combinator? http://bit.ly/I9G0K
It's interesting that 4 out of the 6 winners were directly related members of Congress. It would appear that there is very little interesting Government data outside of the lives (personal and political) of our Congressmen/women.
I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a little more variety. There is a trove of possibilities, what with all the CIA memos floating around these days ;-)
Actually, I was wrong. It was 6 out of 6 related to Congress People. Did I miss something about this contest being restricted to Congress People?
What about some sort of mashup with Census data, NPS data, travel advisories, a national budget dashboard, crime statistics, a tax affordability map, a grant availability finder, a Green or Obscene polution map...I don't know. I'm not very hip on government data, but surely there has to be something out there interesting enough to break into the top 6...
Byron, I think you're on to something there.
@Byron and Marshall - from the contest homepage: "Prizes go to developers who can use data from Sunlight and our partners that makes Congress more accountable, interactive and transparent."
Also, take a look at the contest criteria, esp. #1: "Usefulness to constituents for watching over and communicating with their members of Congress"
It will be exciting to see how the contest rules get expanded next year, and yes those additional mash-up ideas you provided would be great additions.
Another Great One is OpenCongress.org. Track news, vote by vote Senate and House members, Bills as they move through congress. It has a Feed for everything that you track.