Open Data Challenge (2014)

How open is your city, actually? Give your city it’s open data report card. Review the accessibility and usability of your city’s open data with the US Open Data Census. This is a great opportunity for attendees of varying technical ability to explore open data. Anyone with a laptop and a desire to make their city better can participate.

Use this challenge as a breakout project during a hackathon, an intro activity to begin your event, or as a stand-alone exercise to orient people to open data and what civic hackers across have built on top of it. We anticipate prep work for this challenge ahead of your event will take about two hours.

  1. ID the US City Open Data Census Data Librarian for your city. This may be you or it might be someone else. Think of it like nominating an ‘open data librarian’ or ‘census taker.’ Check out the Data Librarian role to learn more about this role.
  2. Get familiar with the Census by submitting and reviewing a dataset for your city.
  3. Many hack events have time for project pitches at the beginning. Come up with a two minute pitch about the Census to get folks interested in working on the Census with you. It’s also helpful to have a five minute presentation to kickoff your breakout.

The Challenge

  1. Recruit your team!
  2. Direct attendees to the open data explainers from the Sunlight Foundation to help people understand how usable data can be the raw material for civic tech applications.
  3. Fill out the US Open Data Census for your city!