Opengov | The Tropo Blog

Posts Tagged ‘opengov’

Hacking Open Government in Philadelphia

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

Our tools and platforms make great building blocks for civic applications, and we’ve been ecstatic to be a part of open government events from coast-to-coast over the last few years.

We Love Open Data

The City of Philadelphia will soon join the growing fraternity of governments across the country and around the world that are opening up data sets for use by outside developers to build civic applications.

During Philly Tech Week in April, the city will make an announcement about the release of data sets in its inaugural Open Data Catalog. This announcement will mark the release of data sets covering things like public safety, transportation, education, parks & recreation and a variety of other categories.

At the end of Philly Tech Week, a major hackathon will take place at Temple University focusing on the use of these new data sets to build civic applications. Tropo is proud to be a sponsor of Philly Tech Week, and to be the organizer of the first hackathon using City of Philadelphia open data.

The 2011 BCNI Open Government Hackathon will take place on Saturday April 30, 2011, in Annenberg Hall on the campus of Temple University. Participants will spend the day building civic applications using Philadelphia open data, and will compete for a variety of prizes to be awarded at the end of the day.

Awards will be presented in three categories:

Best overall use of Philadelphia open government data.
Best data visualization.
Most innovative project.

The event promises to be an exciting one, and we’re looking forward to spending the day hacking with technologists, coders and journalists from around the region with data from the new Philly Open Data Catalog.

If Philadelphia’s experience with open data mirrors that of other cities that have taken similar steps to publish open data and engage developers, this is just the beginning of a process that will lead to an even greater availability of civic data and an increasing number of civic applications and visualizations for citizens and visitors to use.

We look forward to continuing to work with those involved in the Philadelphia open data initiative toward this goal, and we hope to see you at the upcoming hackathon.

Those interested in attending and participating can register here.

Note – Photo by Flickr user vic15

Tags: Events, opengov, philadelphia
Posted in Events, mashups, Tropo | No Comments »

Civic Hacking in Philadelphia

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

Yesterday in Philadelphia, Tropo had the pleasure of taking part in the Data Camp event sponsored by Code for America.

This event was focused on identifying useful data sources for Philadelphia and building civic applications to use that data – in one day! It was a great event, and several really cool projects were taken on by attendees.

Philadelphia Library Locator

I worked with a group to build out a CouchDB-based API for geographic data. Essentially, a Philly version of Max Ogden’s PDX API project, which I talk about more fully in this post.

In one day, our team was able to stand up Philly API and build a demo app that lets users find library locations near their homes or places of business using SMS or IM.

I wanted to demonstrate the power of Tropo for building powerful, multi-channel communication apps quickly and easily. A screen shot demonstrating how the app works can be seen in this post.

Just send an SMS or IM message to the app with an address, and get back the library locations closest to that address. This is a highly effective way to help people who might face some challenges in accessing technology get to a location in their neighborhood where they can have access to the Internet and online government services.

The code for the app is available on GitHub.

This civic hacking event was so much fun that we’re planning another event in Philadelphia in the near future. This upcoming event is going to be awesome, and details will be announced in the coming week.

Stay tuned!

Tags: IM, opengov, philadelphia, PHP, SMS
Posted in Open Source, PHP, SMS, SourceCode, Tropo | No Comments »

Unlocking Government Data with Tropo and Open Source Software

Saturday, December 25th, 2010

This Christmas, the open government data elves have been busy.

They’ve been building useful applications with data sets from municipal governments, open source software and multi-channel communication platforms like Tropo.

With all of the data that is being released by municipal governments, there are increasing opportunities to build useful and interesting applications that can help people and make their communities better.

Sometimes, however, the format of the data that is released doesn’t always lend itself to easy use.

For example, many governments release geographic data sets in shapefile format – this can be a bit of a hinderance for some developers to work with, particularly if they don’t use it often or don’t know much about this type of format.

Fortunately, there are a growing number of open source tool available that make working with geographic data in general, and shapefiles in particular, much easier.

The video below demonstrates how to quickly create a powerful communication application for citizens in New York City to find library locations near their homes.

This demo application uses data from the New York City Data Mine, GeoCouch, a fork of CouchDB that support geospatial queries of CouchDB documents, shp2geocouch, a Ruby gem developed by Max Ogden to convert ESRI shapefiles into CouchDB databases and the Tropo Scripting platform.

This project – completed in just a few hours – demonstrates the power of Tropo to quickly build sophisticated cloud-based communication applications that can be used on a number of different channels to deliver useful government information to citizens. (Note – this demo application can easily be adapted for use with one of a half dozen different IM networks, Twitter, SMS and even voice.)

Best of all, if you’re interested in working on a project like this yourself, all of the source code for the Tropo scripting application that powers this demonstration is available on GitHub.

As more and more government begin to release geographic data in shapefile format, the opportunities to build useful applications will continue to grow.

With powerful tools like CouchDB, shp2geocouch and Tropo, developers will be limited only by their imaginations in how the use this data to make their communities better.

Tags: couchdb, geocouch, opengov, PHP, Ruby
Posted in mashups, Multi-channel, Open Source, PHP, Ruby, Screencasts | No Comments »

Hacking for the Greater Good

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

This weekend promises to be a big one for civic-minded geeks.

Two very important, large scale hacking events are taking place this weekend and the team from Tropo will be taking part in both.

First, Random Hacks of Kindness is holding it’s third hackathon on Saturday and Sunday (12/4 and 12/5) with participants from around the globe. The event will bring together hackers wanting to do some good and help address issues around natural disaster risk and response. Tropo is sponsoring the gatherings in both Seattle and San Francisco.

In addition, another event is taking place on Saturday (12/4) under the auspices of the International Open Data Hackathon. This event will bring together hackers from all over the world to build applications that use open government data. Building innovative and useful apps with open data is a great way to demonstrate to governments the value of providing data in open formats, and to encourage them to do more of it. Tropo will be onsite at the Philadelphia gathering for this event.

If you want to participate in either of these events, there is still time to register for a hackathon taking place near you. Or, if there isn’t, to start one yourself.

Tropo has a history of supporting civic-minded, socially conscious events like these and we are thrilled to be participating in these important hackathons.

Hope to see you there!

Tags: opengov
Posted in Events, Tropo | 1 Comment »

Random Hacks of Kindness and International Open Data Hackathon

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Tropo is joining Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, The World Bank and NASA at the Random Hacks of Kindness Hackathon (RHoK #2) on December 4-5 in San Francisco and Seattle!

What is RHoK #2?

RHok #2 is global gathering of hackers in many locations around the world, coming together in real time for a marathon weekend of coding around problems relating to natural disaster risk and response. The RHok #2 event will be happening worldwide on December 4th and 5th, 2010.

What is Random Hacks of Kindness?

Random Hacks of Kindness is the brainchild of a dedicated team from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and The World Bank. The very first Crisis Camp bar camp was held in Washington, D.C. in June 2009. During one of the opening sessions of the camp an industry panel spoke, and clearly stated that some issues of global importance take precedence over competitive business concerns. That panel included representatives from Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft who agreed to work together to mobilize their developer communities to hack for humanity: to develop code that responds to global challenges and has a real impact in the field. NASA and The World Bank joined forces with Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft to make it happen.

What is the International Open Data Hackathon?

The International Open Data Hackathon is a gathering of citizens in cities around the world to write applications using open public data to show support for and encourage the adoption open data policies by the world’s local, regional and national governments. The very first one is happening on December 4th so Saturday we’ll be pulling double hackathon duty!

Get Involved

Tropo has joined Geeks without Bounds to organize RHoK #2 and the International Open Data Hackathons in Seattle and San Francisco on December 4-5. Registration is already open for these and other locations around the world. Click here to sign up for RHoK #2. There will be free food, WiFi, ideas, prizes and fun. It’s a great opportunity to use your coding skills to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems so sign up and join us!

Tags: Hackathon, opengov, Random Hacks of Kindness
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Tropo Gnomedex OpenGov Hackathon Winner named 2011 CFA Fellow

Monday, November 1st, 2010

The whole team at Tropo is ecstatic to hear that Max Ogden has been named to the inaugural class of 2011 Code For America Fellows. We first met Max in Seattle during our Gnomedex 24 Hour Tinkerstorm. Max (along with teammates Reid Beels and Russell Branca) built GeoNotify, which allows you to draw a shape on a map and subscribe to SMS alerts for things that happen inside that shape.

From today’s Code For America Announcement:

“Out of a pool of over 360 amazing applicants, these 20 stood out for their talent, experience, and passion.* They will be the first participants in our experiment to help city governments better leverage the power of the web. Starting in January, it will be their challenge to not only build innovative apps for each of our cities, but also become the leaders of the ongoing movement to make government more open and efficient. Having gotten to know each of them over the past few months, I can assure you that they can and they will.

Max Ogden and Amber Case at the Portland OpenGov Hackathon

Max Ogden develops client applications, developer tools, and APIs, currently living in Portland, OR, and working as a developer at a market research company. In his spare time, he develops open source civic applications, including a hosted data service for geographic information about Portland, OR, called PDX API. In a 2010 apps competition hosted by the City of Portland, his work on PDX API was awarded, Best use of public data.”

Mark Headd, creator of VoiceInGov.org may have put it best when he said, (of Max): “The man has the well developed underbeard of a true civic hacker!”

Max also participated in our Portland OpenGov hackathon in October and we look forward to his participation in future events.

Congratulations, Max, from the whole Tropo team!

Tags: Code For America, Hackathon, opengov
Posted in Events, Location, Tropo | No Comments »

The Winners of the Portland OpenGov Hackathon are…

Monday, October 4th, 2010

Tropo and GeoLoqi would like to thank all of the participants in the yesterday’s 8 hour open government hackathon! At 8:30 AM, approximately 25 code warriors converged on NedSpace, a Portland co-working space, for a full day of social hacking and a mission to change the world. The goal was to find local government data available through either CivicApps.org, run by Rick Nixon and the city of Portland, or PDX API, run by Max Ogden – master opengov hacker, and integrate it into an application that used either Tropo’s cloud communications API or GeoLoqi’s geo API (or both).

City officials, Rick Nixon and Skip Newberry, were on hand to inspire the teams and help judge the winners! Judging was difficult because all of the applications were very impressive but but a couple stood out of the crowd based on idea, product features, and utilization of APIs.

Winner of the Tropo Sonos Media System:

Simon Walter-Hansen won Tropo’s Sonos media system prize for his creative use of our SMS and Voice API with his Heritage Tree Quest game! Portland residents and visitors can interact with Heritage trees around the state using Tropo’s SMS or Voice with speech recognition. As you locate tagged trees you can interact with them scoring points for each find and trivia question answered!

The participants dubbed this application PacMac for horticulturists!

Winner of the GeoLoqi iPad:

Reid Beels won GeoLoqi’s iPad prize for his creative use of geo location service API! “Don’t Eat That!” pulls health inspections from the county’s web page via screen scraping techniques. Using GeoLoqi’s mobile app, users receive SMS messages (via Tropo) to notify them of restaurants with scores under a certain threshold within 100 meters of their current location. SMS messages look like, “What ho! You might not want to eat at Backspace, their last inspection score was 93!” The rest is up to you whether you want to run away or sneak in for a closer look at the dirty restaurants near you! Don’t Eat That will also post links to the reports as tips on Foursquare!

Notable Runners Up:

Julie Baumler developed a cool Twitter application using Tropo’s Twitter API to engage people looking for pets to adopt through Multnomah County Animal Services database and petfinder.com. Status updates are can be tweeted on the pet’s behalf or users can receive status updates with pets are available that match their search results.

A few of the folks from Cel.ly joined us notably Pierce and Daniel. Their application, BarBird , tracks tweets coming from bar’s twitter accounts. While the application wasn’t finished, they intend to push these messages to your cell phone via Tropo’s SMS API when you get within range of the bar using GeoLoqi’s geo location API.

We would like to thank everyone again especially Amber Case and Aaron Parecki of GeoLoqi for such a fun time and world changing experience! We’ll leave you with a few other photos! Be sure to catch our next event as they are a bunch of fun!

Tags: data, geoloqi, Hackathon, opengov, prizes, Tropo
Posted in Events, Open Source, SMS, Tropo, Twitter | No Comments »

RubyConf 2010

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

Tropo is proud to announce that we are now sponsoring RubyConf 2010 in New Orleans on November 11-13!

This is the place to be for Ruby developers! Jason Goecke, VP of Innovation for Voxeo Labs, and Chris Matthieu, Director of Business Development, will be on-site attending the conference and helping co-host the Open Government Hack-a-thon along with Sunlight Labs!

We will have Voice, SMS, IM, and Twitter communications experts on-hand as well as open government data API experts on-hand and of course hundreds of Ruby web experts on-hand to help you build and launch your next open government app!

We hope to get local government officials and agencies involved in the hack-a-thon so stay tuned for more details! There will also be free food and plenty of coffee to keep you caffeinated! Did we mention prizes?!

Stay tuned…

Tags: civic, conference, Hackathon, opengov, Ruby, tinkerstorm
Posted in Events, Ruby, Tropo | No Comments »

Portland OpenGov Hack-a-thon October 3rd!

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Do you live in or near Portland, Oregon? Do you want to help change the world? If so, Tropo and GeoLoqi are sponsoring a free 8-hour open government hack-a-thon at NedSpace (Old Town, 117 NW 5th between Couch and Davis) on Sunday, October 3rd, from 8:30 AM to 6:30 PM!

Who should attend? We are looking for anyone passionate about building web or phone applications to help their local government offices and communities. This includes idea people, web developers, web designers, and data architects. Fans are also welcome to cheer on your favorite teams or simply be spectators.

We will be serving breakfast and lunch and plenty of coffee! Prizes will be awarded to the individuals and teams with the coolest ideas and applications (web, phone, SMS, IM, Twitter, etc.)

City officials will also be in attendance to provide inspiration and judging assistance. Your application may even be featured in a local government promotion! So stop by and join us for a full day of socializing, hacking, and innovation. Let change the world together!

For more details and to register for this free event in advance, click here!

Tags: Hackathon, opengov, portland, tinkerstorm, Tropo
Posted in Events, Tropo | No Comments »