Listers Sorry for cross posting. This article appearing on mashable.com online is very interesting in illustrating how open data can be deployed. As Kenya is the first country in Africa to open up it's data, we must seek examples that encourage our entrepreneurs and our policy makers as well. Enjoy.. Local Governments Motivate App Developers With Contests Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 04:42 PM | Sarah Kessler The past two years, New York City has hosted contests for mobile apps that use city data. Now New York State’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is launching a similar contest of its own. A number of cities, including Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, have made their data publicly available. It makes sense: Apps that improve parking situations or make public transportation easier to navigate benefit the city without sucking its resources. But New York City, and now New York State, are some of the first governments to add a contest to the process in order to incentivize developers to make such apps. To be eligible for “MTA App Quest” and its $15,000 in cash prizes, the biggest requirement is that apps need to use at least one of the MTA’s data sets. The MTA first posted databases online for developer use in January 2010, and 40 or so apps have been created using the data. But many of these, like NYC Way [iTunes link], were entries in New York City’s BigApps contest, which borrowed several MTA databases. For its own contest, the MTA has released six new or updated data sets, including one that shows where platforms, elevators, turnstiles and station agent booths are located inside subway stations. Beyond that, the two contests are pretty similar, despite one being run by the city and the other by the state. The MTA has partnered with the same contest platform that NYC did, ChallengePost. In this case, ChallengePost is putting up the prize money for the contest. Usually, it collects money to run crowdsourcing contests for clients like the World Bank and Michelle Obama. ChallengePost CEO Brandon Kessler says that NYC was the first city to use a contest on his platform for an open data app contest. Now that New York State has also caught on to the publicity method, we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not the last. More About: BigApps, MTA, new york, public transportation Paul Kukubo CEO Kenya ICT Board Kenya ICT Board Facebook:KenyaICTBoard, tweeter: @TANDAAKenya Personal: Tweeter: @pkukubo FB: www.facebook.com/pkukubo -- Paul Kukubo Chief Executive Officer, Kenya ICT Board PO Box 27150 - 00100 Nairobi, Kenya 12th Floor, Teleposta Towers Koinange Street Tel +254 20 2089061, +254 20 2211960 Fax: +254 20 2211962 website: www.ict.go.ke local content project: www.tandaa.co.ke, www.facebook.com/tandaakenya twitter:@tandaaKENYA BPO Project: www. doitinkenya.co.ke Digital Villages Project: www.pasha.co.ke personal contacts _______________ Cell: + 254 717 180001 skype: kukubopaul googletalk: pkukubo personal blog: www.paulkukubo.co.ke personal twitter: @pkukubo ____________________ Vision: Kenya becomes a top ten global ICT hub Mission: To champion and actively enable Kenya to adopt and exploit ICT, through promotion of partnerships, investments and infrastructure growth for socio economic enrichment