A contest to see who could come up with the best apps, visualizations and other tools to help improve government sustainability practices was held last weekend at the first-ever state code-a-thon in West Sacramento, offering a total of $25,000 in prize money to four winners. The initiative was spurred by enabling legislation from Assemblymember Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, signed by the governor last year.
The objectives of the first-ever state contest, called the “California Green Gov Challenge” and sponsored by the Government Operations Agency, the Department of General Services and several other backing organizations, sought to find innovative ways to reduce waste in resources and increase sustainable practices during these times of environmental change and drought.
Coders spent long days Saturday and Sunday working at DGS headquarters in the Ziggurat building.
Out of 14 finalists, first prize and $10,000 in the contest went to Team Insight, for its project “Green Buyer.” $7,500 and second place was awarded to Nudge SMS for an app that alerts, or “nudges” users with important information. Third place and $5,000 went to Team Shiny for “SmartFLEET,” a website that monitors the average carbon dioxide emitted by any fleet of vans according to their make and model. The “People’s Choice” Award went to Project Weekend School Bus, which proposed using school buses not in commission on the weekend to shuttle various groups around, thereby raising money for education; its project won an additional $2,500.
Judges for the contest included Randall Winston, acting executive director of the California Strategic Growth Council; Daniel C. Kim, director of the California Department of General Services; Anne Neville, director of the California Research Bureau, California State Library; and Gina Lujan, social entrepreneur and founding CEO of Hacker Lab and Code For Hood, among several others.
Judges evaluated the projects on the effective use of data sets from the state’s GreenGov open data portal and other public sources, on innovation and creativity, user-friendliness, usability and interface, and the feasibility of the project’s implementation. Coders were encouraged to enable users to access the most granular sets of data possible, while still displaying the information in an easily accessible way that indicates progress and areas that need improvement.
Winning teams will discuss further development and an implementation plan throughout November, and the check ceremony will be held in December.
The contest was open to Californians 18 years of age or older; state employees were not eligible to enter, according to the contest rules.
The Center for Digital Government, operated by Techwire parent company e.Republic, was one of several event sponsors.
