Social Data Interoperability Challenge

[Matt Richardson]

Big ups to @ToddClausen for turning me on to this. 

It would require a pretty significant effort to accomplish. But I think we have most of the talent we need, and can get the rest we need either from Milwaukee or from outside the area. 

What are your ideas??

Successful Proposals Will Include: 

• Identification of specific data sets to be used;
• Clear, compelling explanation of how the solution increases interoperability;
• Use case;
• Description of partnership or collaboration, where applicable;
• Overview of how solution can be scaled and/or adapted, if it is not already cross-sector in nature;
• Explanation of why the organization or group submitting the proposal has the capacity to achieve success;
• A general approach to ongoing sustainability of the effort.

It's a contest to design a way to create interoperating systems. Here's the details:

The goal of this challenge is to solicit new and innovative approaches to increase the interoperability of data that can be used for social good. We are looking for approaches that deal with both the technological and policy barriers to achieving interoperability, and encourage projects that embrace the complexity of these issues. We seek solutions that span issue areas (e.g. education, health, etc.) and/or geographies to the widest extent possible. Solutions that would be useful for those working in both the impact investing/social enterprise space, as well as the philanthropic/nonprofit worlds are acceptable. We will consider submissions that are focused on a single issue area or geography if the solution as presented could be used or adapted for other causes or places. In these cases, it will be important for applications to describe how the solution could be applied to a different issue or location.

Because the emphasis of this challenge is on interoperability, we encourage submissions from partnerships and collaborations, particularly those that create interdisciplinary teams or groups.  For example, technical and development/design capabilities combined with subject area expertise provide a good basis for collaboration.  We also encourage organizations that wish to make individual data sets linked or interoperable to apply, particularly those whose data is now closed and where part of the objective is to open the data up for broader use. An ideal proposal of this type would describe how the approach can be applicable or adaptable for other data sets. Proposals can be for proof of concepts, pilots, prototypes, or full solutions.

[Matt Richardson]

So here's my first stab at a big idea: The biggest hurdles to open data in municipality are systems and resources. So if we provide both we are far more likely to gain support from the public and municipal officials. 

So we build an open source data exchange for civic use. It has a database and an API (so scrapers can easily by built). Some standard scrapers for commonly used applications. A management dashboard. A public information interface with a reporting tool. A municipal interface that allows data management and deeper reporting. 

Thoughts?