Partner Spotlight: NCoC’s Civic Data Challenge

Countdown to Civic Data Challenge Deadline: Turn Raw Data into Community Tools

Believe that communities can take better advantage of key data in their decision making? Join the Civic Data Challenge and help turn the raw data of civic health into useful community tools. The deadline for submission is July 29th.

The first-ever Civic Data Challenge will bring new eyes, new minds, new findings, and new skill sets to the field of civic health. It’s a project of NCoC (the National Conference on Citizenship), in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, as well as other great partners like Code for America and the Case Foundation. Kaggle, DataWeek, and GOOD are all contributing exciting prizes. The Salesforce.com Foundation has announced their commitment as a top-line sponsor—contributing $25,000 in cash prizes for Challenge winners!

Participants in the Challenge will turn the raw data of “civic health” into beautiful, useful applications and visualizations, enabling communities to be better understood and made to thrive. NCoC is providing its civic health data, as well as other data on the important topics of health, safety, education, and the economy.

You’re invited to collaborate with others, analyze the data, and create something amazing to showcase what you find. Designers, data scientists, researchers, and app developers are especially encouraged to join the challenge. All entries must be received by July 29th, so make sure to join the Google Group now!

The challenge has exciting prizes for the winners, who will be selected from each category — health, economy, safety, and education. As a participant, you will be competing for cash and other cool prizes including the opportunity to host your own data competition on the Kaggle platform, to present your winning insights at Data Week in September, and to feature your submissions through the GOOD platform.

You’ll also have the chance to get your work in front of an awesome team of judges including:

• Leslie Bradshaw, President, COO and Co-founder of JESS3
• Beth Kanter, Author, Blogger, Trainer
• Henry E. Brady, Dean and Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
• Matt Mahan, President and Acting CEO, Causes
• Jake Porway, Founder and Executive Director, DataKind
• Darell Hammond, CEO and Founder of KaBOOM!
• Maria Teresa Kumar, Founding Executive Director of Voto Latino
• Ryan Resella, Technical Lead at Code for America
• Sonal Shah, former Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation
• Michael D. Smith, Senior Vice President of Social Innovation at the Case Foundation
• Christie George, Director of New Media Ventures
• Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist and Craigconnects
• Vivek Kundra, Executive Vice President, Emerging Markets, Salesforce.com.

Winners will be announced at the 67th Annual National Conference on Citizenship on September 14 in Philadelphia.

Watch the Civic Data Challenge team launch the Challenge at the Data 2.0 Summit in San Francisco: http://www.civicdatachallenge.org/blog/post/civic-data-challenge-launched-at-data-20-summit_1

How to find the Challenge:
www.CivicDataChallenge.org
www.Twitter.com/CivicData
www.Facebook.com/CivicDataChallenge