Honolulu is, somewhat surprisingly, the 10th largest municipality in the United States. IBM is working with the local government to update its technology—to “build a smarter Honolulu,” as they would say. Here is an interesting video on efforts to provide data to citizens, and the results from those efforts, namely, citizen-created apps. A bus-tracker app …
As covered by Government Technology, Chicago has upgraded the ChiTEXT component of its 311 system to allow citizens to complete most 311 tasks via text. Texts will prompt a series of scripted questions to better identify the problem: For a pot hole, for example, you may get asked if it’s near a curb line or …
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This week’s video is a fun one; it’s a concept video about Urbanflow, a collaboration between a NYC-based design company Urbanscale and Finnish designers Nordkapp. They want touchscreens everywhere in Helsinki, so the public can access maps and transit info, interact with each other, and report municipal concerns like potholes. John Pavlus has raised some concerns about their …
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Today I want to highlight a great project that showcases the potential for technology to change city life for the better. Random Hacks of Kindness (or RHoK) is as an initiative started in 2009 by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, NASA, and the World Bank that hosts app contests aimed at the more social-justice side of open data. (It was originally aimed …
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Here is Rachel Sterne, NYC’s Chief Digital Officer, discussing a four-point plan for advancing technology in NYC. The four points—which are useful for any city government—are as follows: Access to technology, e.g., expanding the access to wireless Internet Open government, e.g., sharing more information with developers Engagement, e.g., using more social media, specifically Twitter, Youtube, and …
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OpenPlans.org is a nonprofit organization generating open-source software designed to use data to improve city transportation, among other things. It has received quite a bit of media attention recently, including this recent article by Arianna Huffington, spotlighting the organization’s efforts to equip NYC with a real-time-tracking system for city buses. But as the group points …
Today, I want to feature the annual report for Code for America, an amazing new program (modeled after Teach for America) that gives $35,000 to programmers willing to spend a year working on projects for a particular metro area. Tim O’Reilly has called these programmers the heroes of the new data-driven government movement. The report …
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Today’s Wednesday Video is a promotion video done by Oregon about their open-data website for the 2011 National Association of State Chief Information Officers Technology Innovation Awards. I think that it rightly celebrates the advances they’ve made, highlighting the praise its received from Oregon residents and outside groups (particularly transparency advocates). It also highlights many of the popular datasets available. …
Michigan Radio recently ran an interesting story about a county in Michigan that is using an online auction to buy supplies. Taking bids for government supplies is nothing new, but the technology involved here allows the county to get supplies from a much broader group of potential sellers than might otherwise be involved. Here’s the …