My city will give you $10k for a killer Chicago App

From the moment the Rahm Administration entered office, it was obvious that big changes were on the way. For years, the Tax Increment Development Fund was an object of contention and the data was kept under as much under wraps as possible.

The very first week that the new administration was in place – Chicago CTO John Tolva and Chicago CDO Brett Goldstein released all of the data on the TIF funds on the city’s Socrata site at data.cityofchicago.org.

Week after week, the city has been releasing data set after data set – including this nifty crime map that opens in Google Earth.

So, now my fellow govvies…. it’s time to get our app on.

The city has a pot of $50,000 to award app developers for killer Chicago Metro area apps using data from the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois. (These apps aren’t just for Chicago – the seven counties of the Chicago Metro area – – Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will.) There will be three rounds – a transportation round, a community round, and a grand challenge. There will be 10 winners per round with prizes ranging from $300 – $5,000 and a $10,000 check for the Grand Prize.

And what’s more – their going to have a zendesk to help with technical support for the data sets.

In the words of the Vice President – this is a big (bleep’n) deal.

Apps for Metro Chicago

Competition Guidelines

Data Portal

Twitter Handles

@ChicagoCTO

@ChicagoCDO

@Apps4Chicago

So, who’s ready to get their app on?