#NET2Houston will host the City of Houston and Houston’s Civic Hackers on May 14th for our monthly meetup at Stag’s Head Pub. RSVP on the Netsquared Houston meetup group.
Houston’s City Data Goes Open Source
I’m really excited about our upcoming event, where we’ll learn about the City of Houston Hackathon to kick-off the City of Houston’s Open Data Initiative.
Bruce Haupt, from the City of Houston’s Finance Department, will share the vision of Mayor Annise Parker and Council Member Ed Gonzalez for utilizing Houston’s Open Data Initiative to improve our city.
Bruce will show you some examples of how initiatives like this have benefitted other cites, and tell you about some of his favorite projects. You can view a few ideas the Mayor’s office has developed on the HoustonHackathon.com Projects page.
We’re going to also be brainstorming our own ideas about how open City data sets can help advance civic-minded causes in Houston!
Learn More about Open Data and Your City
Open source data sets are rapidly being released by local, state and Federal governments regularly now, and thanks to newer technology frameworks, like Django and Rails, it’s easier than ever to connect to different databases and sync or share data sets.
Here’s 3 awesome links to get quick facts and juicy details about the City of Houston and Code for America’s Open Data and Innovation projects:
1) The Code for America App database aims to be the “most complete and up-to-date database of government and civic software”, according to their website: (http://commons.codeforamerica.org/apps/), and some of the apps they have listed are really incredible and they’re open source.
2) The open data portal software that Houston’s data portal will utilize is called CKAN. CKAN provides the tools needed to enable and manage file and data sharing between two databases. Learn more about Code for America’s open source data portal platform: http://commons.codeforamerica.org/apps/ckan.
3) Read the Mayor’s Press Release announcing the Hackathon and Open Initiative Program launch: http://www.houstongovnewsroom.org/go/doc/2155/1762955/.
How Will You Use the Data for Good?
Tuesday May 14th – Join us for Netsquared at Stag’s Head Pub
Come share your ideas for using the city’s data with Bruce and other civic-minded hackers and techies. Your ideas on how to use these data sets can dramatically improve our community by providing us with more accurate, real time data about our city’s resources and how they’re utilized.
May 17th-May 19th – Join us at the Houston Hackathon
The City of Houston will Kick-Off the Open Data Initiative with a weekend long Houston Hackathon.
Ed and I will be sharing Tendenci t-shirts and stickers at the Hackathon, and we’re available to help with your project if you need an extra geek. If you’re interested in using Tendenci’s open source platform for building a city data app, come find me because I have a few ideas about how nonprofits and associations might want to use public city data with their websites and membership databases.
Join Us Tuesday, and Bring a Friend!
Leave your comments below if you have ideas to share, and follow the conversations on Facebook, too!
“Like” Net2Houston on Facebook
RSVP for the Houston Hackathon Pre-Launch Happy Hour on Facebook