Competing to make government data more interesting
What do you do after you've mashed up some information with some maps?
Well you might want to create an application to help display it. And after the interest shown in the MashUp Australia competition both the NSW and Victorian state governments are getting in on the free-ing up government data act by launching App building competitions, aiming to pique people's interest in doing new things with the government data they've released into the Creative Commons.
apps4nsw screen shot
The apps4nsw competition came first, offering a $100,000 prize pool for people with either the ideas, or ideas and development skills, to make good and interesting use of some of the government data available from the NSW Data Catalogue – which includes datasets like the Map of Fixed Speed Cameras in NSW or the Additional Transport Timetables set up for Major NSW Events. The closing date for submissions of either app ideas, or prototypes, that will, as the website says: unlock the potential of NSW information, is the 22nd of March.
Never to be outdone by NSW, the Victorian State government announced the App my State competition, which invites people to create or imagine applications that: aim to make Victoria the best place to live, work, visit and raise a family. The prize money on offer is the same, and you're invited to use just Victorian government data, source your own or mash it all up together.
Vic apps screen shot
You can have a look at some of the Vic app entries so far here and the idea entries here. The competition closes on the 23rd of April.
It's interesting to see what kinds of things people come up with but it's more interesting to see what new data, if any, the state governments give people access to.
