UPDATE: Baltimore IS working on an open data portal
UPDATE: The previous headline of this post was "Baltimore is CRAZY for not opening up its data and encouraging app development (cc: Mayor Rawlings-Blake)." But I've gotten word from the mayor's office this afternoon that, based on citizen feedback, the city IS indeed working on an open-data portal for city data. So take everything I say below as background on the topic. Hooray Baltimore!
What apps would you like to see for Baltimore?
Did you know that Washington DC has a contest called "Apps for Democracy," which awards prizes who use data from DC government to build useful Web, mobile and Facebook apps? The contest yielded dozens of apps and saved the city money.
The folks who run it are sharing how they did it with the world. Peter Corbett, founder of iStrategy Labs in D.C., which created the contest, said it's been adopted in about 20 places around the world.
See the graphic below:
Can Baltimore do something similar?
Mike Brenner thinks so. Mike is a web developer and runs the new blog, Startup Baltimore. He's put out a call to do a similar "Apps for Democracy" contest in Baltimore.
Our political and business leaders should take Brenner's call-to-arms seriously. From Brenner's blog post:
Other cities caught wind of this incredible venture and started planning their own versions of the open-data app contest. New York City and its mayor Michael Bloomberg launched NYC BigApps, powered by the NYC.gov Data Mine. It initially cost the city $20,000 and returned 85 apps with an estimated value of return of $4.25 million. Again, an almost incalculable ROI of 21,150%. California has recently launched a similar statewide competition dubbing it as “The Great Data Gold Rush”. One of the most noteworthy outcomes of California’s open-data initiative has been an app that uses San Francisco’s 311 API to create service requests from Twitter via TweetMy311.org.
What does Baltimore need to get started? First, our city government needs to make a wide range of data publicly available, so that developers can tap into it. Washington DC did it with their data catalog.
Corbett said that the technology is relatively easy to set up. And he pointed out that Baltimore was one of the first cities in the country pioneer a "Comstat"-type system of data reporting for its police department and other government agencies, under Mayor Martin O'Malley.
The data is there -- we just need to turn it on for public access.
"I don't know why the city wouldn't want to publish data openly in the way that DC does," Corbett told me. "It really shouldn't be a political issue. Citizens and hackers aren't making government officials look bad. They're building apps to help citizens."
What do you think? Do you support Baltimore City's opening of public data feeds for the development of Web and mobile apps for citizens?
This is an archived version of the technology blog. For updated coverage, see the current baltTech location: baltimoresun.com/balttech
Comments
For what it's worth, this is, and has been, in progress. Watch for announcements from the city soon.
Posted by: Dave Troy | October 1, 2010 1:31 PM
Dave, what are the details of your efforts? Who's working on what? I'd love to hear more!
I wrote about and proposed the BmoreApps.org initiative after talking to numerous people also interested in such a contest. I couldn't find anything already in place but would love to see an end result either way.
Gus, thank you for bringing light to the topic as well as getting in touch with Peter. My head is spinning thinking about how an open-data stream might benefit the Sun!
From what I've heard from some local un-officials, there seems to be an interest from the city but they want to do it "the right way". There's clearly a cost to setup and maintain an accurate data stream but I've got faith that the creative-tech class of Baltimore can justify the expense with a slew invaluable applications that will benefit our city.
Posted by: Mike Brenner | October 1, 2010 1:55 PM
I'd be happy with a halfway usable city website.
I think it's a great idea, but I'm not sure Baltimore has the IT infrastructure to support it. The last time I submitted a bulk trash request online, I received an email with a Word doc attached that had my pickup date on it.
Good points, Eric. It's important to do the basics well. -gs
Posted by: Eric | October 1, 2010 2:37 PM
Mike -- you may remember that Tom Loveland and I met with the folks at City Hall in late August to discuss these exact issues with them.
I am not at liberty to discuss everything that was discussed there, but I can tell you that an effort is already underway, and that the folks at City Hall understand the issues.
I cannot speak for the City directly, but I would expect more announcements soon based on our previous discussions.
Best,
Dave
Posted by: Dave Troy | October 1, 2010 5:34 PM
While I can see that setting up 'feeds' of data might take time I don't understand why the City can't just dump the city stat database as it exist today for people to start playing with and seeing what data is there to use in future efforts.
Posted by: Paul | October 3, 2010 9:31 AM
As usual the city will continue to drag there feet ---- My guess they are not going to create the required technology that is supposed to be easy ---- again the city will appoint a minority owned business to create such.
Posted by: Tommy Tucker | October 3, 2010 10:05 AM