Check out how Data.gov is making news. You'll also discover stories about Open Government and how Data.gov supports its core principles of transparency, participation and collaboration.
OP-ED: OPEN DATA IS RE-DEFINING GOVERNMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Monday, June 17, 2013
Perhaps it’s the constrained fiscal reality, punctuated by threats of government shut-downs. Or maybe it’s the ideological wars in Washington, playing out most recently in the battle over privacy and security sparked by revelations about the PRISM surveillance program. Whatever the reasons, the public sector in the 21st century gets a bad rap. As Tim O’Reilly, the founder of O’Reilly Media, has said, government is seen by legions of citizens from coast to coast as a bloated and inefficient ATM that takes in taxes and delivers mediocre services in return. Even a muscular liberal like Paul Krugman of The New York Times calls the federal bureaucracy “an insurance company with an army.”
But a new movement, spurred by digital and social activism, is taking root to renovate and redefine the public sector. ... Opening up data, says Todd Park, the U.S Chief Technology Officer, “means taking data that is sitting in the vaults of the government, that the taxpayers have already paid for, and jujitsuing it into the public domain as machine-readable fuel for entrepreneurship and innovation.”
Data, Tigers & Innovation; oh my! A recap of Health Datapalooza IV
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Check out this recap of the event! If you didn’t get to attend this year’s Health Datapalooza, get a recap with the presentations that are now posted online, videos from the main stage session and photos from two days of excitement. Remember that next year’s Health Datapalooza will be held June 1 – 3, 2014 in Washington, DC.
White House shares API standards guide
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
"Before hands hit keyboards or anyone started writing any code, I think a number of people on our development team started thinking ahead to maintainability issues," said Bryan Hirsch, new media technologies tech lead in the Executive Office of the President. Hirsch spoke May 2 on a DigitalGov University webinar.
With that goal in mind, the team behind WhiteHouse.gov developed API standards and made them publicly available on GitHub. The standards have served as a useful reference document, said Leigh Heyman, director of new media technologies in the EOP.
Read more: White House shares API standards guide - FierceMobileGovernment http://www.fiercemobilegovernment.com/story/white-house-shares-api-standards-guide/2013-06-12#ixzz2WFVYJf8O Subscribe at FierceMobileGovernment
Putting open data to use | FCW
Monday, June 10, 2013
"We're trying to move beyond the days when...agencies were just asked to make their data accessible, put it on Data.gov and call it a day," Xavier Hughes, the Labor Department's chief innovation officer, told attendees at ACT-IAC's Management of Change conference in May. "Data doesn't have its own two feet and run around saying, 'Use me, use me!'"
Government via mobile apps | The Washington Post
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Here are excerpts from recent online posts from various federal technology executives, discussing new apps on the one-year anniversary of the Obama administration’s digital government strategy.
GOOD 100: Meet Todd Park, Fueling Innovation Through Free Data | GOOD
Saturday, June 8, 2013
United States Chief Technology Officer Todd Park says one of his biggest projects in 2013 is scaling up the Open Data Initiatives program – an effort to make government data and information resources publicly available and easily accessible, in a machine-readable format, as fuel for innovation, entrepreneurship, and scientific discovery. Using the National Weather Service as a model, which began making its weather data available for free electronic download a few decades ago, Park hopes to allow entrepreneurs to utilize the data to create improvements on our lives and generate billions of dollars in annual economic value. “Through the Open Data Initiatives program, we are working hard to replicate and expand upon these successes,” Park says. “Thousands of major government data resources across fields such as health and medicine, education, energy, public safety, and finance have been posted in ‘computer-readable’ form for free public access on the www.Data.gov website.”
Health Datapalooza IV Tops Off a Huge Year in Health Data Liberation & Innovation
Friday, June 7, 2013
The following is post is by Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, HHS and Todd Park, US Chief Technology Officer
Health Datapalooza IV has officially wrapped and with over 1900 attendees and 80 companies, this was the biggest palooza yet. Kicked off by Secretary Sebelius for the second year in a row, this year’s event was a tremendous display of health data in action.
Health Datapalooza IV Tops Off a Huge Year in Health Data Liberation & Innovation | White House blog
Friday, June 7, 2013
Health Datapalooza IV has officially wrapped and with over 1900 attendees and 80 companies, this was the biggest palooza yet. Kicked off by Secretary Sebelius for the second year in a row, this year’s event was a tremendous display of health data in action.
Looking back now, it is amazing to think that four years ago this all started with 45 people in a small room at the Institute of Medicine. ...
Wanted: A rockstar developer for Data.gov | FCW
Friday, June 7, 2013
Agencies often have a hard time competing with private-sector employers for top-notch IT talent, but this job might hold special appeal for the open-data crowd: The Data.gov team is hiring its own developer.
Thousands of Americans Innovate for Good on the National Day of Civic Hacking | White House Blog
Friday, June 7, 2013
At events across the country, participants in Civic Hacking Day were set loose on open government data, building tools, apps, and solutions that can help address challenges faced by communities across America and form the basis of products and companies that contribute to our economy.
The Obama Administration has long recognized the power and potential of this kind of data-driven innovation. That’s why President Obama last month announced historic steps to unleash government data as fuel for innovation and job creation, including an Executive Order requiring newly generated government data to be made available in open, machine-readable formats, while ensuring privacy and security
