Yesterday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) invited several innovators and tech experts from across the federal government to participate in a workshop on best practices for hosting open data events. Called “Data Jams, Datapaloozas and Hackathons,” the event was also an opportunity for agency representatives to “pitch” their own ideas about an open data project to help improve government services, save lives, and achieve results in a collaborative environment.
Several members of the FirstNet communications team participated in the White House event, including Bernetta Reese, who is on detail to FirstNet from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natasha Marstiller, and Kyle Richardson. The FirstNet team joined with Allison Lemon from the Federal Drug Administration and Erin Williams from National Archives and Records Administration to come up with a concept for a public safety application that helps reduce response time by providing an interactive map to show the location of an emergency and nearest first responders.
In explaining the goal of their pitch, FirstNet reps said open data and applications can benefit the public safety community by enhancing their situational awareness and decision-making, which can help them saves lives and property.
Other federal groups participating in the event had ideas for apps with different focuses, such as disease prevention, improving employment, and helping rural communities thrive. Attendees voted on their favorite pitch, and the results will be announced at a later date.
U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Nick Sinai and several representatives from the White House OSTP, including Erie Meyer, Senior Advisor to the Chief Technology Officer, hosted the event and explained the ”who, what, why, where, and how” to conduct open data events. Charles Worthington, who is also a senior advisor to the CTO, spoke on best practices for Hackathons. For a brief explanation of these types of events, please see below:
Data Jam:
• Day-long “ideation” event with developers, designers, and subject matter experts
• Focuses on one topic and top related open data sets
• Have several in succession, leading up to a “Datapalooza” three months later
• Goal: connect tech and policy communities and get commitments to make things with open data
Hackathon:
• Event where developers, designers, strategists work in teams to solve problems with software and/or hardware and demo the resulting work at the end of the day
• Goal: build relationships with the tech community and see immediate tools and prototypes
Datapalooza:
• Day for demonstration and announcing open data news
• Highlight the work of hackathons and data jams
• Goal: announce open data tools, companies, and commitments and showcase finished products.
For more information about these and other open data events, please visit the White House Open Government space website, as well as the best practice case studies (PDF). Also, the White House is accepting public safety app submissions on their website. The White House OSTP will highlight the most innovative applications during a Safety Datapalooza tentatively scheduled for next spring. To see more pictures from yesterday’s event, please see the FirstNet Flickr album.
