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Sunlight Labs Offers $25,000 For Data.gov Apps

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the long-way-to-go-to-make-the-government-up-to-date dept.

Andurin writes "With the launch of Data.gov, Sunlight Labs is offering $25,000 in prize money for developers who create apps that use newly-released federal government data. Data.gov is paving the way for citizens to become more engaged with their government, by providing for the first-time a clearinghouse of federal data in developer-friendly formats. The Apps for America 2 contest aims to find the best applications that rely on Data.gov, whether it be a client application, an iPhone app, or data visualization. Also, the first, second and third prize winners will receive airfare and hotel placement for a trip to Washington DC. While in Washington, DC, they'll attend an awards ceremony at the Gov2.0 Summit by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb."

4 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Notice the first app... by tcopeland · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...'FBI Most Wanted' Concentration. Pretty clever!

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  2. Propoganda at its finest by longhairedgnome · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'm wondering, is it possible that by using all this data, the government is in essence, spying on back on us, monitoring the usage of the data?

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  3. Horoscope Prover by Laxori666 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is divorce data. There is also birthday data. The astrologists also tell us which zodiac signs go together. This'd be a prime way to statistically prove or disprove their claims: see if divorce rates are higher between mismatched zodiacs.

  4. What about the opportunity to learn something new? by gbrayut · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When Resolver Systems started their $25,000 competition for the best spreadsheet examples for Resolver One, I saw it as a great opportunity to learn IronPython and play around with a new program that looked interesting. I spent some free time having fun coding in a new language, and the Texas Holdem Monte Carlo Hand Evaluator worksheet that I made ended up being pretty useful. Oh... and it won one of the rounds, so I see it as time very well spent :-P

    Now this competition is a bit more structured and has much less of a "fun" factor, but it still is a good incentive to look at the data that is available and try and think of new ways to visualize or use it.