A long(itude) history of contests and challenges

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Apps Contests and the passage of the America COMPETES Act

• A new movement for collaborative innovation in open government starts in 2008 in DC

• Around the world, apps contests are unlocking government innovation

• In 2011, the America COMPETES Act allows all agencies to host challenges

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Key issue for “App Contests 2.0”

• Build community, not just apps

• Move from cool to useful

• Address sustainability issues

• Identify problems to solve04/10/2023 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 3

Key issues for open government data

• 2010 open data survey showed progress but a long road still ahead

• Developers say only 30% of data needed is available, 50% of that unusable

• Issues: data timeliness, accuracy, usable formats, metadata schemas, consistency, and incomplete data sets

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Next Steps

• Post this webinar on EPA’s site

– www.epa.gov/appsfortheenvironment/webinar.html

• Continue the conversation on our blog at http://blog.epa.gov/data/

• Submit your apps by September 16

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For more information

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• Alex Howard, O’Reilly Media

• alex@oreilly.com, @digiphile

• Jeremy Carbaugh, Sunlight Foundation

• jcarbaugh@sunlightfoundation.com, @jcarbaugh

• Michaela Hackner, ForumOne

• mhackner@forumone.com, @KalaBird

• Ethan McMahon, U.S. EPA

• mcmahon.ethan@epa.gov

• Apps for the Environment: epa.gov/appsfortheenvironment