Evergreen Apps Challenge

WhichBus

Elliott — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:40:39 +0000

WhichBus can automatically search for your current location as an origin or a destination

One of the biggest barriers to transit ridership is the accessibility and legibility of pertinent information. The team behind WhichBus, winner of the Second Best app and Best Multijurisdtictional app, has built a tool with that in mind. Unlike taking the car (origin: wherever I am, departure: now, destination: wherever I want) a trip by bus involves a three part question: “Where do I catch the bus, which bus should I catch, and when does it leave?” Without adequate answers to all three parts, a would-be transit rider, even a motivated one, can have a confusing, lengthy and unpleasant experience.

Answering a question like “How do I get there by bus” involves the data for hundreds of bus routes and realtime schedule information for each of the buses running on all of those routes. This app is exciting because its users–the transit riders of metropolitan Puget Sound–now have a beautiful interface to all of that data, packaged in the most efficient way: a choice between several customized trips, with accompanying maps and schedules.

There have been a few apps that offer realtime information–most notably the Seattle classic OneBusAway, whose developer Brian Ferris now works for Google Transit in Switzerland. King County Metro offers a useful TripPlanner web application, but until now, none of the resources those apps rely have been made so easily accesible.

From “here” to “Discovery Park”

WhichBus sports an efficient layout and pleasant application of color and type. The focus on design makes the entire process of planning a trip easy, orderly and comprehensible. That focus extends beyond just the app’s interface, though. One of the most useful features the WhichBus team built into the app is the ability to search for several kinds of terms: the name of a neighborhood or a landmark, or an address or cross street. This is extremely helpful when attempting a trip that involves unfamiliar routes, or a destination you haven’t visited by bus before.

A search for routes to “The Ave” helpfully results in a clarifying question that leads me to that street’s official name, University Way NE

For many transit riders across the world, smartphones have become an integral part of the networks of buses and trains they rely on every day, because they have the capability to provide the full range of information that’s needed to plan a trip by bus. The WhichBus team has built a tool that goes a long way towards bringing that to riders in the Seattle area. Next up is a public beta. Dave Rigotti from WhichBus reports that more than 1,000 people have signed up to be included in the next release, which follows an extended period of development that began at StartupWeekendGov [LINK] at Seattle City Hall in May.

The Living Voters Guide: Democracy online

Elliott — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 17:03:17 +0000

http://www.livingvotersguide.org

In the first of a series of posts on the winners of the Evergreen Apps Challenge, we’ll focus on the Living Voter’s Guide, which took home prizes for Best Overall App and Best State App. The Living Voter’s Guide is an attempt to improve on the paper-based voter’s guide mailed to every registered voter before an election takes place. These pamphlets include arguments and rebuttals from representatives of the proponents and opponents of a given candidate or ballot measure. In other words, the vast majority of the information in your paper voter’s guide is coming straight from the campaigns. Instead of making it about the campaigns, the Living Voters Guide has made it about the voters.

“Many voters feel overwhelmed and divided on policy questions,” says Seattle CityClub’s Diane Douglas, “especially when there are so many issues that appear on our ballots. They are disheartened by toxic partisan rhetoric and don’t know where to turn for wisdom on the significant decisions before them in upcoming elections. Living Voters Guide offers an opportunity to build a connected and informed electorate from the grassroots up. We hope it inspires public trust in one another.”

In 2010, the first version of the LVG was released by a team from Seattle CityClub and several departments of the University of Washington (Computer Science and Engineering, Political Science, Communications and Human-Centered Design.) The goal, besides conveying basic background information about each ballot measure, was to introduce a kind of interactivity, making the process less about deciding between two extreme arguments and more about an extended discussion between what LVG likes to call “virtual neighbors.”

http://www.livingvotersguide.org

In the app’s first two elections seasons, more than 25,000 Washington Voters used the Living Voter’s Guide, which hosted discussions of more than 200 state and local ballot initiatives.

Just like the paper Voter’s Guide printed for each election and mailed to your house, the Living Voter’s Guide features the officially designated ballot titles and descriptions from the Office of the Secretary of State. Users are then able to submit their pros and cons and take a position on the issue. Where it begins to differ is in the effort put into fostering civility. According to the Living Voters’ Guide team, “our ranking algorithm identifies the most important factors that resonate across the whole group in a way that helps identify common ground (even across users with opposing positions) and prevents interest groups from taking over the discussion through flooding the site.”

This year’s edition, which launched two weeks ago in preparation for next month’s General Election, will feature one particularly noteworthy innovation: on-demand fact-checking by our city’s most ruthless researchers: the librarians of the Seattle Public Library. If you are skeptical about a point raised by another user, you can request a fact-check. A librarian will respond to verify or debunk the claim–or to explain why it cannot be verified–and to provide additional information and context.

What’s next for the Living Voters Guide? According to Douglas, “We intend to scale LVG’s use in our state and in other states. We also want to expand its features, e.g. making it accommodate multiple languages. Finally, we hope to use it for other kinds of consensus-based decision making beyond voting.”

The Living Voter’s Guide should provide a great resource for voters who want to know more before filling out their ballots–which promise to be especially crowded this year. But as Douglas point out, it’s not just an app’s existence or quality that determines its success: “The biggest factor for success, however is ACCESS–ensuring that these wonderful digital tools are available to everyone in the community.”

App: http://www.livingvotersguide.org

Video: https://vimeo.com/31315280

Thank you to our judges

Elliott — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 20:29:30 +0000

The judges (from left, Bill Schrier, Francis Benjamin, Susannah Malarkey, Monica Guzman and Jason Preston)

The first Evergreen Apps Challenge culminated this week with the presentation of awards to six different teams of developers. Our distinguished panel of judges put a good deal of time into the work of reviewing and judging apps. Thank you to all of the judges who took time out of their busy lives to help us promote innovation and engagement between the worlds of tech and government. Your expertise made the first Evergreen Apps Challenge a success.

Congratulations to the Winners of the Evergreen Apps Challenge

Elliott — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 17:40:55 +0000

Congratulations to the winners of the first Evergreen Apps Challenge. A crowd of more than 100 people came to the Awards Celebration at City Hall last night to demo new apps, talk to developers, and hear from elected officials about some of the work that went into the apps entered into the Challenge. Our panel of judges awarded prizes to six new apps. Learn more about the winners below.

Living Voter’s Guide
http://wash.livingvotersguide.org

Best Overall App, Best State App

WhichBus
http://www.whichbus.org
@WhichBus

Second Best Overall, Best Multijurisdictional App, People’s Choice

Seattle RainWatch
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/SPU/

Good Government Award

Trash Backwards
http://trashbackwards.com
@trashbackwards

Honorable Mention, Best City App

foodInspector
http://www.kcfoodinspector.com/

Honorable Mention, Best County App

alike
http://alikeapp.com

People’s Choice

Keynote Speaker Conrad Saam of Urbanspoon confirmed

Terra — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:21:54 +0000

We are excited to announce our keynote speaker for the upcoming awards and celebration on October 1, is Conrad Saam of Urbanspoon.

Conrad is the VP of Marketing for Urbanspoon, the most downloaded food and top three travel application. He has spoken at numerous SMX events, SEOmoz Pro Training and SearchFest conferences and is a regular lecturer at the University of Washington’s MBA program. He is the in-house search columnist for Search Engine Land, speaks regularly on Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and Reputation Management, and has been featured in publications including USA Today, the New York Times and The San Jose Mercury News. His writing has appeared in Search Engine Land, Law.com, ClickZ, Technorati, and Search Engine Strategies Magazine.

Conrad holds an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He tweets @conradsaam.

Join us to hear about his views on data collection for building out comprehensive app coverage and challenges of repeating the Urbanspoon story today.

How can you get an edge in a highly crowded app market with multiple hardware (smartphones, tablets) and software (IOS, Android, MSFT 8, Blackberry) platforms?

See you there! Monday, October 1, 2012 5:30 to 7:30 PM

Bertha Knight Landes Room
Seattle City Hall
600 4th Ave
Seattle, WA 98124

Announcing the Evergreen Apps Challenge Awards Celebration

Elliott — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 21:56:41 +0000

In less than three weeks, we’ll be announcing the winners of the Evergreen Apps Challenge at City Hall. Be sure to mark October 1 on your calendars and register for free.

Bertha Knight Landes Room
Seattle City Hall
600 4th Ave
Seattle, WA 98124

Monday, October 1, 2012 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM

Join Mayor Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine at City Hall to celebrate the winners of the Evergreen Apps Challenge. $75,000 in prizes will be awarded for the best new civic apps, including two people’s choice awards, which will be decided by those in attendance. Everyone who comes gets a vote. Music and light refreshments will be provided.

The deadline is tomorrow!

Sabra — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:31:41 +0000

Two Days Left to Submit Apps
Deadline: Thursday, September 6, 5 PM

Apps have been rolling in over the past couple weeks as Thursday’s deadline approaches. To make sure your app has a chance at $75,000 in prizes, submit it by 5 pm on September 6. It’s worth reading the rules, but essentially competitive apps should:

1) Benefit residents of Washington State, King County or Seattle

2) Use data from or about Washington State, King County or Seattle

3) Be created by people who live, work or study in WA

4) Remain available for download/use for a year

Mark your calendars: October 1
The Evergreen Apps Challenge Awards Celebration at the Seattle Center

Come celebrate the winners, meet our panel of judges and learn more about the winning apps. Attendees will also have the opportunity to vote for their favorite app in two people’s choice categories. Refreshments provided. See the next generation of civic apps unveiled to the public.

Interested in helping sponsor Evergreen Apps at our Oct 1 celebration? Email evergreen.apps@seattle.gov for more information.

One Week Left

Elliott — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:51:58 +0000

The deadline for submitting applications to the Evergreen Apps Challenge is only one week away. Eligible entries should be submitted before 5 pm PST on Thursday, Sept 6.

A number of completed apps have already been sent to Challenge organizers, who will look to a panel of judges to award more than $75,000 in prizes on October 1, when the winners will be announced. The Challenge is open to people who live, work or study in Washington State and Washington small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

The Evergreen Apps Challenge is a cooperative effort between the State of Washington, King County, and the City of Seattle to encourage economic development and job growth in our region while providing useful apps for residents and visitors.

The State, County, and City have all made datasets available for public use, though any data about Washington State, King County or Seattle can be used for the challenge. Review detailed rules here to see if your application or idea is eligible.

In April, Seattle hosted the first government-focused Startup Weekend, where programmers, entrepreneurs, government officials and technical experts joined together to build apps over the course of a weekend. Two teams came away from the event with first prize award apps: WhichBus, an application that can generate useful directions for getting from one part of town to the other on the bus, and Art Rover, an application that can locate nearby public art, and help people explore the city in a new way.

The Evergreen Apps team and judging panel is looking forward to seeing a variety of applications in this next round of competition that includes student awards. Don’t miss the deadline or this chance to build an app and make a difference.

Deadline for Evergreen Apps Just 15 Days Away

Elliott — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 18:50:28 +0000

The Evergreen Apps Challenge wants local developers to know that the deadline for submitting apps is just fifteen days away. Contestants are encouraged to finish their submissions by Thursday, September 6. A number of completed apps have already been sent to Challenge organizers, who will look to a panel of judges to award more than $75,000 in prizes at an event in early October. The Challenge is open to people who live, work or study in Washington State, registration and prize details can be found on our site.

The Evergreen Apps Challenge is a cooperative effort between the State of Washington, King County, and the City of Seattle to encourage economic development and job growth by encouraging local entrepreneurs to build mobile software applications that can help people create useful experiences out of the data that government creates on a day to day basis. The State, County, and City have all made datasets available for public use.

In April Seattle hosted the first government-focused Startup Weekend, where we brought together programmers and entrepreneurs with government officials and technical experts. Two teams came away from the event with first prize award apps: WhichBus, an application that can generate useful directions for getting from one part of town to the other on the bus, and Art Rover, an application that can locate nearby public art, and help people explore the city in a new way.

The Evergreen Apps team and judging panel is looking forward to seeing all the application ideas in this next round of competition. Don’t miss the deadline or the chance to build an app and make a difference. Prizes are available.

Mobilizing – No Ferry

Will Saunders — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 04:12:51 +0000

The Bremerton ferry had problems today and our sailing was cancelled. But we did manage to salvage some of the scene with some classic mobile apps:

We heard about schedule issues first by phone from one of our developer participants in the morning, so we checked @wsferries on a Twitter app. Looked like our 3:00 pm sailing was ok, but we tweeted to @wsferries to make sure and got a quick response. Then the bad news – again via Twitter @wsferries – that our 3:00 pm sailing was cancelled. Thanks to EventBrite we were able to get the word out to everyone, but some were already en route. So we checked Yelp and picked an alternate location to gather and hang out. We used Glympse (a cool Washington company) to post locations and bring the hosts together at the Polar Bar.

Great evening for those who made it. Scott Moore from ESRI and Chris Metcalf from Socrata made it, and we talked through data sets on data.wa.gov, data.seattle.gov and geography.wa.gov.