Apps for Democracy Winners: A Good Day to be a DC Resident

The answer is in: what do you get from 260 data feeds and $20,000 in prize money?  The District of Columbia says you get 30 days of frenetic activity and 47 applications that mash up public data in ways that government itself may never had the time, inclination and impulse to develop themselves.  Such are the results of an aptly named competition, Apps for Democracy, which all but wrapped up round one today.

The winners range from the useful to the quirky and all point to the potential of democratizing data.  They all put the individual at the center of the transaction, which may be progress enough in rethinking the relationship between citizens and their government.

Here is a briefly annotated tour of the top two tiers of award winners:

Gold (Independent)

iLive.at - Doing errands in DC will never be the same.

Gold (Agency)

DC Historic Tours -- A walking tour planner, powered by a Google Maps-Flikr-Wikipedia mashup, minimizes steps and maximizes experience

Silver (Independent)

Park It DC -- fighting the constant circling, the unnecessary meter plugging and even expensive tickets that come with finding a parking spot in DC.

Where's My Money? DC -- The buck stops at a Facebook Forum on public expenditures, procurement and accountability.

DC Crime Finder -- Ripped from the databases, not the headlines -- a customizable look at crime in the neighborhood.

Silver (Agency)

Stumble Safely -- Making the streets of DC safe for pub crawls.

PointAbout Alerts -- an iPhone app makes crime reports, building permits and other civic  data location-aware in that you see the stuff that is closest to you first

We the People Wiki -- An editable Vox populi for our Web 2.0 times, embedding the voice (or keystrokes) of the people through an editable, peer-led community reference website based on Washington, D.C. public data.

The full list of winners is available at the Apps for Democracy Medal Winner page, which comes complete with the opportunity to vote on the People's Choice award -- and the polls for which remain open until Friday, November 14 at 7PM EST.

The medal winners and the honorable mentions (which are all other entrants for their willingness to innovate, compete and collaborate) are all open source and all are offered to others for refinement and reuse.  Perhaps more importantly, they keep hope alive for redeeming the reputation of a discredited phrase, your tax dollars at work.