Last fall, we told you about an exciting and innovative competition to find – and fun – civic-focused web abd mobile apps in New York City.
Tonight, after an all-star panel of judges had reviewed more than 80 apps over a month-long period, a handful of winning applications were announced. These apps include WayFinder, a resource for navigating around the city; Taxihack, a live-feed commentary on New York City taxis; Big Apple Ed, a guide to New York City schools; and seven others.
Judges for the competition included such media and technology luminaries as NY Tech Meetup co-founder Dawn Barber, Betaworks CEO John Borthwick, Mahalo co-founder Jason Calacanis, EDVentures Founder Esther Dyson, FirstMark Capital CEO Lawrence Lenihan, AlleyCorp co-founder Kevin Ryan, DFJ Gotham Ventures managing partner Danny Schultz, and Union Square Ventures managing general partner Fred Wilson.
The BigApps prizes also included a Popular Choice Award, which was decided by an online public vote from people around the world.
The grand prize winner for the competition, Wayfinder, is actually an Andoird app that allows users to find the nearest and best directions to New York City subway and New Jersey PATH stations. It was also selected as the Grand Prize winner for the Data Visualization Award. That team received a total of $7,500 for both prizes.
Other winning applications include:
- Actuatr, a platform that simplifies opening up data to developers;
- NYC Way, an iPhone application that bundles a variety of NYC resources for tourists and locals (also the Investor’s Choice for monetization potential and Popular Choice winner, a $5,000 prize altogether);
- PushpinWeb, a platform for public data;
- Trees Near You, an iPhone app that shows data about trees around New York City;
- UpNext 3D NYC, an interactive 3D map for exploring and discovering the city;
- Overview New York City Parks and Recreation Online, a web app for finding New York City parks; and
- Bookzee, a location-based library book search.
“We opened up the 170 datasets of City information to unleash the creativity and ingenuity of New Yorkers, and we were not disappointed,” said Mayor Bloomberg, who announced the awards at a dinner tonight. “The apps submitted offer a range of unique capabilities, many of which use the data in ways we hadn’t considered. We want New York City to stay ahead of the innovation and technology curve, and we’ll continue to capitalize on our greatest asset – New Yorkers – to make sure we do. Thank you to all of those who submitted apps, and congratulations to the winners.”
The New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications worked with around 30 agencies to provide more than 170 datasets for the competition. The data included geographic locations of all sidewalk cafés, laundry facilities, playgrounds, dog runs, city landmarks, as well as census data, extensive property valuation and assessments, the results of restaurant inspections, lists of permitted citywide events and even side parking and traffic updates.
