Is Apps for Democracy a New Model for Innovation?

Apps for Democracy, the recent contest put on in Washington DC in conjunction with the DC government and Peter Corbett’s iStrategyLabs, was a resounding success in many people’s estimation. For those of you who are not sure what the contest was all about, in a nutshell it was an opportunity for developers the District’s pretty amazing data catalogue, which provides real-time data from multiple agencies, to build applications on top of providing services to the local’s in some pretty innovative ways.

The contest recently wrapped up and the winners were announced to much fanfare. There was even a press conference by Mayor Fenty, see below.

Apps for Democracy from Shaun Farrell on Vimeo.

This was followed up that evening by the announcement of the winners, and a nice after party where many got to see some of the apps in action and mingle with the developers, Peter Corbett, and even the District’s CTO Viek Kundra, who should all be congratulated on a job well planned and well executed.

As I have said in a previous post, I had the distinct pleasure of having a short meeting with Vivek and came away most impressed with him and his vision. I was honestly blown away by the steps he has already taken to move DC to the forefront of utilizing up to date technology to make government more effective. However, like many other forms of government sometimes getting innovative ideas to fruition is not the easiest of tasks. But Vivek didnt let that stop him. He is well aware of the need to utilize local smaller companies in order to inject that innovation directly into the local government.

I honestly think these types of contests are the model for innovation as we move forward into the future. Gone are the days of the big ideas coming form the behemoths and governments, local, state, or federal. Rather it will come form the bottom up from developers like the ones that participated in Apps for Democracy. Look at how the X-Prize Foundation has spawned advances in space travel and working toward more efficient vehicles.

I applaud Vivek for being so forward thinking and I congratulate Peter and his team for planning and executing a great event in such a short amount of time. Hopefully it will become a model that he can use to help other local governments leverage their data and locals for some incredible tools for all to use.