Open Data

International Open Data Day is this weekend, February 21st and 22nd. As part of the festivities, Code for America is hosting its 4th annual CodeAcross. The event aims to unite developers across the country for a day of civic coding, creating tools that make government services simple, effective, easy to use. Put simply, “the goal of CodeAcross is to activate the Code for America network and inspire residents everywhere to get actively involved in their community.”

In exciting local news, Durham and Durham County are launching a new site dedicated to centralizing public data in Summer 2015. Their press release mentions a health sanitation app Code for Durham built as a model of civic engagement with open data. Our own co-founder and CTO, Colin Copeland, is co-captain of Code for Durham, a volunteer organization dedicated to building apps that improve government transparency.

Colin Copeland, our Chief Technology Officer, recently spoke to WNCN about a new web application, NCFoodInspector.com, that lets Durham County visitors know the cleanliness of nearby restaurants. Colin helped build the application in his spare time as captain of Code for Durham Brigade, an all-volunteer group dedicated to using technology to improve access to publicly available sanitation scores. The group leverages open source technology to build applications.