Updates

Although the Apps for Communities Challenge wrapped on 12/15/2011, checkout a video highlighting the challenge grand prize winners, words from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, Damian Thorman, the National Director of the Knight Foundation, Jen Pahlka, the CEO of Code of America and a challenge, plus much more!

Watch Here: http://fcc.us/appshighlightsvid

Remember to follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.  

If you couldn't make it to the offices of Andreessen Horowitz in Silicon Valley for the Apps for Communities Challenge Awards, then checkout the video of the ceremony.  The ceremony includes a welcome from John O'Farrell, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, remarks from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Damian Thorman, the National Director of the Knight Foundation.  Plus presentations from the grand prize winners: Yak.bus, Homeless SCC, Txt2wk and much more!

Watch Video:

http://fcc.us/appsawardsvideo

Remember to follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.  

See all the eligible apps: http://appsforcommunities.challenge.gov/submissions

Apps for Communities Challenge Winners Revealed!! 
 

Last April, Knight Foundation and the Federal Communications Commission challenged developers and citizens from across the country to develop apps that deliver personalized, actionable information for the Apps for Communities Challenge. As a result, we received almost 70 entries from around the U.S., from California to Pennsylvania.  

The challenge awards $100,000 in prizes to winning application developers and is intended to bring together providers of public data, developers, and traditionally underserved populations through a national contest.  

Today, the FCC and the Knight Foundation are proud to announce the winners of the Apps for Communities Challenge, developers who answered the call to make local public information more usable and more actionable, making the benefits of broadband more tangible for all Americans. They’ve created apps that directly connect citizens to public information, like social services, job listings, fresh food locations, resources for the homeless and education training. Our winners inspired us with their creativity and commitment to helping communities in need across our country.   

The wait is over, and the winners of the Apps for Communities Challenge include: 

$30,000 — Grand Prize:

Yak.bus www.yakb.us by Ryan Resella, San Francisco, California.
YAKB.us is a real time bus notification system that uses voice and SMS. YAKB.us currently supports 3 different transit agencies: Arlington Transit in Arlington County in Virginia, Charlottesville Area Transit in Charlottesville, VA and Santa Clarita Transit in Santa Clarita, CA. 

$20,000 — Second Prize:

Homeless-SCC http://homeless-scc.org/ by Curtis Chang, Consulting Within Reach, California
Homeless-SCC (Homeless - Santa Clara County) is a web based app that connects homeless individuals with services according to specific needs and eligibility. The app empowers local government, nonprofit agencies, and the general public to collaborate around accurate and actionable information. The app has been adopted by the largest county government in Northern California, which includes the city of San Jose, and the leading local agencies serving the homeless. It is currently in the rollout process. The app was designed by Consulting Within Reach and funded by a local church committed to serving the homeless. 

$10,000 — Third Prize

txt2wrk http://www.txt2wrk.net by Dave Chiu, Roger Ly, Lawson Kight, and Elise Ackerman, Oakland, California
Txt2wrk helps parolees, homeless, and other job seekers compete on a more level playing field by providing text-to-speech delivery of job postings on any mobile phone. With txt2wrk, job seekers are alerted to new job postings, can listen to job descriptions, and apply for jobs, 24 hours a day, all without a connection to the internet. 
 

$1,000 X5 - RUNNERS UP: 

PREPPED Kids http://www.preppedkids.org/ by Damien Leri, Ian Bennett, and Stanton Wortham, Pennsylvania
PREPPED Kids is a web and mobile application designed to help low income families more easily access preschool and pediatric (hence PREPPED) services in their local communities. They chose these specific domains because together they support the healthy development of children and both have similar types of administrative hurdles for under-resourced families — particularly if parents have low literacy and/or low English proficiency. This web app is interactive and makes use of publicly available information from education, health and social service agencies. 

PlacesKidsGo http://www.placeskidsgo.com by Ningning Lin, Jerry Lin, Andrew Chen
PlacesKidsGo simplifies searches for appropriate children’s activities. Currently, the site draws on hyper-local San Jose data, including program information from nearby municipal recreation centers. After specifying an activity category (e.g. tutoring, soccer, arts) and a location, users can refine the list of choices by selecting the child’s age or the time of interest. 

Access Together http://www.accesstogether.org/ by John Schimmel, New York City
Access Together will enable people with disabilities, their family, friends, and neighbors to crowd-source a community’s accessibility information. Similar to a Foursquare check-in, a user will open Access Together on their mobile phone’s web browser, find their location, and supply answers to accessibility questions. For example “Is the entrance wheelchair accessible?” 

PhillySNAP http://www.phillysnap.com by Katey Metzroth, Mark Headd, Deng-Shun Chang, Tim Wisniewski, New York City and PennsylvaniaSMS-based PhillySNAP seeks to connect low-income, technologically isolated Philadelphia residents with fresh local food sources. How it works: PhillySNAP users text their address (house number and street) from a basic cell phone to a local phone number 267-293-9387 and users receive the following informative texts: 1. Address, hours, days, and distance to the closest Farmer’s Market accepting SNAP benefits, 2. Address and distance to the two nearest retail stores accepting SNAP benefits using the USDA API, 3. A randomized text about one of several programs to maximize SNAP benefits through affordable fresh local food programs. 

Talk with Sam http://www.talkwithsam.com/ by Vikram Pant, Maryland
Talk with Sam provides citizens the ability to see legislative bills near them based on their location. It allows citizens to add comments around the bill and use social media to share the bill to their social network(s).  It provides a vote up / vote down ability and computes an approval rate based on votes. Through community development many more features can be added to improve end-user experience. Talk with Sam uses open data sets from Sunlight Labs Open States and the 2010 Census to provide a location-based lookup of bills (open, passed, failed ... in addition via subjects) in the citizen's area based on geolocation. 

BONUS PRIZES: 

$10,000 Bonus: Best Design and Visualization
Homeless-SCC (Homeless Santa Clara County) http://homeless-scc.org/ — see 2nd prize description above
  

$10,000 Bonus: Most Replicable Application
Access Together http://www.accesstogether.org — see Runners Up description above 

$5,000 Bonus: App with the Best Use of SMS
txt2wk http://www.txt2wrk.net — see 3rd prize description above 

$5,000 Bonus: App that Best Impacts People with Limited Digital Proficiency                           
PREPPED Kids www.preppedkids.org — see Runners Up description above 

$5,000 Bonus - App that Best Impacts People with Limited English Literacy                     
Off to Market http://mertonium.com/off-to-market/ by John Mertens

Off to Market is an SMS application helps people find fresh food in their area. Figures from the CDC show that about 1 in 3 Americans is obese. One of the underlying reasons for this is lack of access to fresh fruits & vegetables. Off to Market is combating this problem using the lowest common denominator of modern communication, the SMS text message. The rationale is simple: if we can provide a simple interface to help people locate the fresh food in their area, then maybe they will eat it. 

High-speed internet isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity for full participation in our economy and democracy. As FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has made clear, broadband is an indispensible platform for economic growth and job creation, and for addressing major national challenges like education, health care, energy and public safety. But there’s a gap. Right now, nearly one-third of the country – 100 million Americans – don’t have high-speed Internet at home.  

Consistent with Knight Foundation’s mission to foster informed and engaged communities and the FCC’s goal to encourage broadband adoption and deployment, the FCC and Knight Foundation co-sponsored this Challenge.  We hope that these ideas can be replicated throughout the country.  

Today’s Apps for Communities Challenge winners demonstrate what having millions of more Americans digitally empowered can mean for the country: more customers for online businesses, more Americans using cost saving e-government services, and more Americans with the digital skills needed to find and land the jobs of today and tomorrow. 

See all the eligible apps: http://appsforcommunities.challenge.gov/submissions

Remember to follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.  

Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation challenged American citizens to develop software applications (apps) that deliver personalized, actionable information to people that are least likely to be online. Using hyper-local government and other public data, people developed apps that will enable Americans to benefit from broadband communications -- regardless of geography, race, economic status, disability, residence on Tribal land, or degree of digital or English literacy -- by providing easy access to relevant content.

This week, we’re excited to unveil the winners at a ceremony at 10 AM PST Thursday December 15 in Silicon Valley and online at http://appsforcommunities.challenge.gov/

The Apps for Communities winner celebration details are: 

Date: December 15, 2011 from 10 am to 11 am
Location: Andreessen Horowitz Offices in Silicon Valley
RSVP: appchallenge@fcc.gov

At the celebration, you’ll find out our Grand Prize winner ($30,000), Second and Third Prize winners ($20k and $10k respectively), the five Runners Up prizes ($1k each), and the bonus prize winners!

Checkout all the eligible apps: http://appsforcommunities.challenge.gov/submissions

Remember to follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.  Hope to see you there!

So, who's behind the 50+ apps that we've received so far? Curious to know some details? 

Apps are coming in from communities across the country — from Native American reservations and cities in California, Georgia, Oregon, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, New York, Washington, and Michigan.

What are the apps about? They're for accessing information to help with traffic and physical road condition alerts, diabetes, tribal issues, rental property openings, expanding opportunity for low-income kids, pediatric services, emergency use of hashtags, student records, homeless services, greening cities like Detroit, and much more.

The apps are made by men and women, young and old, from teens to elders, local leaders, community organizers, students, new media fellows, engineers, and developers. We're pleased to inform you that every-day Americans are getting involved with the Apps for Communities Challenge and are putting on developer hats to help their communities.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski spoke earlier this week at an event at LivingSocial inWashington, DC and painted the broader picture on apps (download his full speech here): "Our 'apps economy' is envy of the world. With U.S. software developers leading the way, there are now more than 500,000 mobile applications available, and apps sales are projected to approach $38 billion by 2015. It wasn’t long ago when the mobile apps economy didn’t exist at all. Mobile, local, and real-time are each big trends, creating jobs and opportunity here now and with huge potential for the future."

Broadband and app development are ways to create jobs, and stimulate the economy. By entering the Apps for Communities Challenge, you can take part in developing an app to improve life for your fellow American. Our prize money will help community app developers go further with their apps. Would you like to be one of them? There's still a couple days till the 10/3 deadline! (Be sure to read How to Enter and Judging Criteria on creating an app for the challenge.)

Pretend its finals time. Buckle down all weekend to create something you'll be proud and could win you prize money. With mobile phones in the hands of many who can't afford computers, your apps can help give communities access to useable info.

Remember to follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.

We have now received over 50 entries to the Apps for Communities Challenge. Thank you for your help and support!  Recently, we sent out a call to bloggers to write about our challenge and they responded.

Can you write a blog post about the challenge? Let us know if you do and we may be able to help send traffic to your site. There is less than one week left to enter the Apps for Communities Challenge, get involved and develop an app to help improve your community or spread the word to others that may be interested in supporting the cause!

Craigslist, Idealist, and SourceForge are some of the outlets using social media to publish posts on Apps for Communities. We welcome posts by the community to let more developers know about the challenge. The deadline is only 5 days away. Who'd like to win the prizes?  Check out our blog coverage below:

Apps for Communities Deadline Approaching
By Abhi Nemani Director of Strategy and Communications: amateur mini-golfer and poor man's hacker. maker of things. currently coding for America.

Last Call for Apps for Community + Most Awesome Judges
GovLoop is a social network for government.

They began the post with: Very cool...just got this info.  And have to say - best set of judges I've seen on apps contest (Andreeson, Feld, Booker - dope! (plus other folks are sweet too)

Just Two Weeks Left in the Apps for Communities Contest
By: Damian Thorman, J.D National Program Director at Knight Foundation            
Knight Foundation published this post and is partnering with FCC for the challenge.  

FCC App for Communities Contest
By: Debra Ruh, CMO, SSBBART Group
This post highlight “...watching the FCC step up to the plate with accessibility… They have worked with many leads in the community and really appear to be embracing accessibility."

Girls in Tech is Honored to Support the Federal Communications Commission in its "Apps for Communities" Challenge                 
Shared guest post authored by the FCC.                                                                                             

Remember to follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.

The folks behind Apps for Communities are ecstatic when the community talks about how our app challenge will make the information you need more useful in your daily life. We want to share some of the many great tweets we’ve appreciated this summer. 

Holly Ross (@ntenhross), executive director of NTEN, asked her Tweeps: “Can a web app help school kids in MI?”

What do you think? [Correct answer: Yes!] Holly continued, “Enter the Apps for Communities challenge! http://t.co/7ewlin #nptech @jakebrewer".

 We’re grateful to influential people with tech followings like Alex Howard (@digiphile) of O’Reilly Media, Craig Newmark (@craignewmark) of Craig’s List, and Rachel Sterne (@rachelsterne) who serves as Chief Digital Officer for New York City. They wrote these tweets:

Special thanks to GovFresh (@govfresh by @lukefretwell) for friendly DM’s and many mentions, including this recommendation:

It’s been awesome hearing what you’re excited about, such as:

We followed up and happily just heard back from @silona: “My plan is to solidify those codeathon plans this month! for oct and nov! I will be in touch next week!”

We can’t wait to hear!

We’re glad when you think our ideas are great, liike @onyxfish of Hack Tyler fame:

He ended up polishing an app he’d already been working on rather than starting something anew.

We really appreciate if you think of us when you see a great article, like @mheadd below about an article on government technology:

We’re thrilled when you think our tips are useful:

We love it when word gets out to large followings like @nonprofitorg’s!

We’re gratefully enjoying sangrias when you mention our fantastic judges:

@digiphile Aug 12, 3:01pm via TweetDeck

Notable judges for @communityapps: @pmarca @pahlkdot @CoryBooker @bfeld @sbma44 & @CharlesBest: bit.ly/p816Ae #gov20

It’s really helpful when you recommend us to your friends on the fly from your mobile phone:

Jermaine_HudsonAug 19, 4:42pmviaTwitterforiPhone

If you are like me and aspire to be an App Developer, follow @communityapps via twitter!!! #Innovate#Inspire

In closing …

The deadline has been pushed back to accommodate our judging panel’s desire to take a close look at all entries and to allow more developers to enter apps. We thank you for your continued support as we head toward the final deadline of October 3rd!

We’re glad if the extension works for many of you. As @onyxfish who said, “I see you've extended the app deadline again. My new MacBook and I may have a submission after all. ;-”

There are so many others who’ve been making this campaign fun on Twitter. Thank you! See you on social media! 

Remember to follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.

By Tammy Sun, Communications Director, FCC, 

It’s the final days of summer and the Apps for Communities entry deadline’s been extended until October 3, 2011. Thanks for all those who’ve already submitted; our judges are looking forward to reviewing your apps. To enter, apply via the Challenge.gov portal and add a link to your team’s fully functioning app or demonstration and the source code.  

 The Apps for Communities Challenge is an initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Federal Communications Commission. The Challenge will offer up to $100,000 in prizes to winning application developers and is intended to bring together providers of public data, developers and traditionally underserved populations through a national contest. The challenge is an effort to drive the great technical skills we have in our country out into our local communities. A particular goal is to build new applications to improve access for people who struggle with accessing information and services online: Seniors, non-English speakers, people who are uncomfortable with technology, and others. The results of this contest can have an enormously powerful impact on local communities across the country.

This year, we’re honored to have investors, technologist, civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and philanthropist who have agreed to server as judges for the competition:  Marc Andreessen, Mayor Cory Booker, Charles Best, Brad Feld, Jen Pahlka and Tom Lee. 

Remember to follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.

By Clay Johnson, Partner, Big Window Labs

We are thrilled to have already received over 35 entries to the Apps for Communities contest, but because we've just recently confirmed our impressive slate of judges, the Knight Foundation and the FCC wanted to give everyone a few extra weeks.  The results of this contest can have an enormously powerful impact on local communities across the country and we could not be happier that so many participants are interested in our contest.  As a result, we're extending our deadline until Monday, October 3rd.  

In addition, we are also honored to have the participation of so many distinguished judges:  Marc Andreessen, Mayor Cory Booker, Charles Best, Brad Feld, Jen Pahlka and Tom Lee.  They are looking forward to judging your entries.  This challenge is an effort to drive the great technical skills we have in our country out into our local communities. A particular goal is to build new applications to improve access for people who struggle with accessing information and services online: Seniors, non-English speakers, people who are uncomfortable with technology, and others. This contest seeks to bring the value of broadband to people who are, up until now, less likely to be online.

For those of you who've already submitted apps -- if you'd like to tweak and fine-tune your app and edit your submission, please feel free. Or if you'd like to double your chances of winning, you're welcome to use this extra time to create a second entry.

For those of you looking to enter our contest -- now's your chance to get started.  We've got an extra month on our deadline -- and if you'd like to get your work in front of these impressive judges, improve the way people use data in communities across America, and potentially win up to $60,000 -- now's your chance!

Good luck and thank you.

-- The Apps for Communities team

Please follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.

The FCC and the Knight Foundation have partnered up for a competition to build apps to make cities more livable! As developers and communities’ use the last few weeks of summers to finish their entries for the Apps for Communities Challenge, it’s time to announce the impressive panel of judges who will be reviewing and scoring those entries.  We are honored to have investors, technologist, civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and philanthropist who have agreed to server as judges for the competition; which ends October 3.  Without further ado, the judges are:

Marc Andreessen , co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz.

Marc Andreessen is a noted investor in information technology. He previously developed the web browser Mosaic and co-founded the company Netscape; he is an investor in numerous technology startups including Digg and Twitter; and he serves on the boards of Facebook, eBay and Hewlett-Packard (among others).

Charles Best, founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org.

DonorsChoose.org is a website that allows people to donate directly to specific projects in schools and classrooms. It was started in 2000 by Charles Best, when he was a teacher at a public high school in the Bronx. Since then, it has grown to serve all the public schools throughout the United States. As of August 2010, more than $55 million dollars had been donated to over 138,000 projects, helping more than 3,400,000 students in need.

Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey

Mayor Booker has a history of organizing and social justice work. His parents successfully fought against racial discrimination and shattered corporate ceilings, inspiring him to pursue a life of breaking barriers and working for change. On May 9, 2006, Cory Booker was elected Mayor of Newark, with a landslide victory.

Brad Feld, Managing Director of Foundry Group

Brad Feld has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group—which focuses on investing in early-stage IT companies—he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad currently serves on the board of directors of several companies for Foundry Group. In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology. 

Tom Lee, Director of Sunlight Labs

Tom Lee is the Director of Sunlight Labs; prior to assuming leadership of the labs, he managed Sunlight's Subsidyscope project, an effort to explore the level of federal involvement in various sectors of the economy. His writing on technical policy has appeared in the American Prospect, Techdirt, Progressive Fix, and various impassioned Slashdot threads.

Jennifer Pahlka, Founder, Executive Director and Board Chair of Code for America

Jennifer Pahlka is the Founder, Executive Director and Board Chair of Code for America, and has spent the past 15 years in the company of the technology elite. She spent eight years at CMP Media where she led the Game Group, overseeing GDC, Game Developer magazine, and Gamasutra.com; there she also launched the Independent Games Festival and served as Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association. Recently, she ran the Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 events for TechWeb, in conjunction with O’Reilly Media, and co-chaired the successful Web 2.0 Expo.

Please follow @communityapps on Twitter, or the Apps for Communities Facebook page for updates and news.