Canadian Open Data Events -- Including a $50K Contest

Posted by Jennifer Bell on 2010-03-16 15:15:05

• Edmonton: The city of Edmonton hosted an Open Data Workshop on March 6th, where Edmonton CIO Chris Moore announced they will be hosting an upcoming contest called Apps4Edmonton, the first ever Canadian open data apps contest. The contest will include up to $50,000 in prize money. More links from this event as they arrive.
• Ottawa: Ottawa activists are organizing an Open Data Hackfest for April 24th. The Ottawa group (which includes members of CivicAccess) has been running an impressive media outreach campaign, landing two interviews in the Citizen, one in the Sun, a spot on CBC Radio Ottawa, and – in what’s likely a Canadian first – an open data story en français in le Droit.
• Vancouver: Nik Garkusha, Microsoft’s open source strategy lead in Vancouver, and local company Nitobi, will be hosting an “Open Data Drinks and Apps” night on March 18th where they’ll be talking about building applications using open data catalogues, and showing some application demos. More details here.
• Quebec City: On March 18th there will be a Web Education Day for government employees (also open to the public) which includes a panel session on Canadian open data initiatives.

News From Elsewhere:

• As part of president Obama’s Open Government Directive, each US federal department is collecting feedback from citizens on top ideas for improving government services. The list of US federal department feedback sites is here. Government 2.0 commentators on GovLoop are tracking which departments are seeing the most action.