Innovations in cloud, mobile and social technologies are creating huge opportunities for civic agencies to re-imagine the way they provide social services, allowing them to increase successful outcomes, while reducing costs and improving service. If we want to address the challenges of poverty in the United States, and make government work smarter, then disrupting welfare makes for a good place to start.
What is very exciting about U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) ‘Commerce Business Apps Challenge’ is that this is another Commerce contribution to the President’s Open Innovation agenda. We’ve been releasing data on Data.gov for years, but now we are using that data in a way that businesses can more easily consume so they can grow and create jobs. As Vint Cerf of Google said, ‘Unlocking US Government data will not only stimulate new uses for it but also draw attention to this vital trove of information that has likely lain fallow for lack of visibility and digital accessibility.’
Health 2.0 Developer Challenge, launched on June 2nd, 2010 at the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI) meeting at the IOM, with support from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), hoped to ignite innovation using newly opened government datasets.
The goal now is to continue the excitement of CHDI and to bring the Health 2.0 Community together for rapid application development. There’ll also be more government data and privately contributed health data for developers and teams to work with.
Create platforms where citizen citizens can actively serve. Code for America plugs software developers into city halls for a year so they can help government work better and spark decentralized citizen problem-solving. It’s a great program — and a template for other kinds of talent-tapping for the common good. How about Write for America, or Design, or Build?
I’ve committed to BillTrack50 as my way to try to make a difference. I have a deeply held belief that the world is full of smart people with great ideas (and also funny people, but that’s a different post). The better we can inform smart people about what the state legislatures are doing, and hook their great ideas into the process, the better off we all will be.
To me, getting people more involved in the political process, beyond simply voting every four years, is work that matters.
justified.
a : to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable
b (1) : to show to have had a sufficient legal reason (2) : to qualify (oneself) as a surety by taking oath to the ownership of sufficient property
