A competition to increase access to data, as well as quality of public data has begun with the help of Ukraine Crisis Media Center. The goal of the competition is to be able to pack large amounts of data into a single phone application.
Kyiv, August 16, 2016. The global project of cities’ open data – Apps4Cities Challenge – has started. The communications partner of the competition is Ukraine Crisis Media Center. A competition for the best initiatives concerning open access to data on daily life in the city will be held within the framework of the project. Not only analysts from authoritative organizations, journalists and politicians, but ordinary townspeople will also be able to use the data. This was reported by Olga Aivazovska, head of the civil network “OPORA” Board, at a briefing held at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “The ambitious goal is to take large amounts of data and pack them into one phone application,” she explained.
Ruslana Velychko-Tryfoniuk, project coordinator of “Cities” data / Apps4Cities, said that the competition participants should either have their own idea of developing services based on at least one data set from this list, or suggest a new way to implement the already proposed idea. Civil society activists who know the problems of cities are also invited to work on their solution. The projects will be voted on in November. “The vote will select 20 finalists. The jury will select 10 of them, and the other 10 will be selected through online voting. The winners will go to the hackathon to develop prototypes. Then there will be the final voting, which will select three winners, who will each receive 3,000 dollars. They will also be offered a process of incubation and training,” explained Mrs. Velychko-Tryfoniuk.
Oleksandr Ryzhenko, director of the State Agency for E-Governance of Ukraine, focused on the problem of low quality of public data. “Today the major problem lies within the quality of the data. A lot of them are in formats that are difficult to use for businesses and social initiatives. We must not only increase the amount, but also improve the quality. Such competitions will help in this,” believes Mr. Ryzhenko.
