The State of California will hold an application development contest this summer, according to O’Reilly Radar, and the state is partnering with Google, Microsoft, ProgrammableWeb, and IdeaScale to make it happen. ProgrammableWeb’s site for the contest will be live later today.
Update: The Apps for California site is now live. See also Programmable Web’s blog post about the effort.
“ProgrammableWeb will be the hosting point for all the contest entries,” company founder John Musser told ReadWriteWeb. “Developers will register their apps on PW and our readers and community of developers will be able to see these contest entries, rate them, as well as learn more about the contest.”
California will be using Microsoft’s Open Government Data Initiative collection and Google’s Fusion Tables to provide access to the data sets, which will be listed in ProgrammableWeb’s directory of over 2,000 APIs. The state will also use IdeaScale to solicit feedback and ideas for new applications from non-technical citizens.
The State of California follows Washington DC’s Apps for Democracy contest, The Sunlight Foundation-sponsored Apps for America contest, and the U.S, Army’s Apps for the Army.
As the most populous state in the U.S., California’s move bodes well for the future of open government. “Overall, this initiative from the state of California is a big step on the road to more open APIs and transparency from government, and we’re looking forward to seeing the innovative apps created as a result,” Musser said.
