What: A one day workshop for people interested in using Oakland and Alameda County, CA data to build mobile apps for the 2011 Knight/FCC Apps for Communities Competition (see appsforcommunities.challenge.gov)

June 2, 2011 UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we have $5,500 in stipends and prize money promised to developers who present their projects and are awarded contracts by our panel of judges on behalf of CFO. Here's the breakdown:

$1500    Ramsell prize

$500      Ramsell prize for youth

$1000    Mozilla

$1000    Pandora

$500      Urban Strategies Council--for work with Re-entry Data API

$500      City of Oakland, for work with Oakland files

$250      Full Court Communications

$250      Full Court Communications

plus  an in-kind prize from Citizen Space, 3 months of workspace( worth $1350)

What’s going to happen?

The Knight Foundation and the FCC came to Oakland, CA in April 2011 to announce a major new tech competition called Apps for Communities that will award $100,000 in prizes to reward mobile and web-based applications that use government and public data to "deliver personalized, actionable information to people that are least likely to be online."

So, that’s where Code for Oakland comes in.  We’re pulling together a low-cost one-day Bar Camp that will bring government officials, developers, designers, and interested parties together for a day that will be devoted to looking at local datasets of use to people in Oakland, and that gives teams a chance to talk through, brainstorm and prototype their ideas before the competition closes on July 11.

Come win prize money for your ideas!Win prize money to support building an application to submit to Apps for Communities—over $2,500 in potential awards.

What will happen at the event?

This will be a day of talking, brainstorming, planning. Optimally,  we hope to:

Show and share local government data sets competition entrants might work with

Build connections between potential collaborators who want to build useful apps for local people and need to fill out their team/skills

Encourage the exchange of experiences, expertise and ideas between those involved in leading open government data initiatives around the East Bay and nearby.

· Prototype ideas We hope there will be plenty of space for developers to hack on things — from refining core bits and pieces of technology to rapid prototyping of new ideas

 Can I propose a session for the morning?

Yes, especially if you are the owner of, or have access to, public data sets with Oakland/East Bay relevant information.  Send ideas and links to data sets for our data catalog to codeforoakland@oaklandlocal.com.

What kinds of topics will be covered at the Code for Oakland day

Sessions will include things like:

• What are datasets that can serve low-income people and local communities of color?
• Finding open government data: catalogues, registries and metadata
• Working with data: Technical aspects of opening up government data
• Working with mobile: Mobile highlights to know
• Developer speed-dating: Find others to work with on your project

What kinds of outputs will there be?

Projected outputs include:

• Prototypes of ideas for Apps for Communities
• Formation of teams to work on projects for competition
• Documentation of interesting projects and ideas

Who’s behind the event?

 Code for Oakland: A one day data camp was conceived of and is being organized by a committee of Oakland-based business and organizations led by InOak(Innovate Oakland), Oakland Local and Code for America. In addition, the event is being supported by

• The City of Oakland
• Code for America
• Comcast
• Pandora
• Skytide
• Lake Merritt/Downtown Business Association
• Oakland Digital(ODALC)
• Tech Liminal
• Spot.us
• Kollective Mobile
• Winning Strategies
• Tech Liminal
• TUMIS
  
• Urban Strategies Council
• Whole Foods
• Kaiser Permanente