Developers Help Start August with a Bang for Apps for the Environment

GreenApp Developer Community Reaches 1400 Members

Wow! Over 200 new members have joined the Developer Community listserv in the last week! Our community now includes people from 14 colleges and universities, 12 federal and state agencies, and 7 countries! Be sure to encourage your friends and colleagues to sign up so they can get the latest news on the challenge! To join the listserv, visit our homepage.

Sign Up for the Next Developer Webinar to Discuss EPA’s Environmental Enforcement Data

The next webinar for developers about EPA’s datasets is Wednesday, August 10, from 2-2:30 EST. We’ll be talking about data systems that deal with environmental enforcement data, including IDEA (Integrated Data for Enforcement Analysis) and ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online). Register here!

If you’ve missed any of our weekly webinars, don’t forget that you can get recordings and transcripts from all of our past webinars, plus find out what topics we’ll be covering next. It’s all on our webinar page.

Code-a-thon and Special Webinar Announcement Coming Soon

Make sure to check in next week when we’ll have two big announcements about an upcoming university code-a-thon and a special webinar with O’Reilly Media’s Alex Howard and Sunlight Labs’ Jeremy Carbaugh to discuss how we can really support the developer community. In the meantime, YOU can hold a code-a-thon with a group of developers to make prototypes of apps in a half-day or full-day session! Our toolkit describes what you need to do to make a code-a-thon happen.

New App Ideas

Looks like everyone’s been busy coming up with great ideas for apps! Here are a few new ones from this week:

“It’d be nice to have an App which is very similar to EPA’s enviromapper but would work on a handheld device so that it’d provide realtime data while visiting a site. Also possibilities of reporting any map/data discrepancies should be provided in the App to make it more precise and better.”

“An emergency response app for residents impacted by floods with specific practical information about dealing with flood water, cleaning up after floods, and dealing with private drinking-water wells after flooding. This information is online at http://www.epa.gov/naturalevents/flooding.html but people may have limited computer access and time after a disaster. Could be combined with CDC  (http://emergency.cdc.gov/disasters/floods/after.asp ) and/or with USGS information about flooding conditions (http://water.usgs.gov/osw/floods/ ) such as WaterWatch.

“Idea for using TRI data to identify waste minimization and P2 opportunities: I’d like to see any app that accesses EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) on facility chemical treatment practices to identify candidates for waste minimization and pollution prevention, e.g., a facility burning an organic chemical might be a candidate for purchasing recycling and reuse technology. This app might be used by the regulated industries as well as Federal, State and local government agencies.”

In The News

ProgrammableWeb.com continued the buzz Sunlight Labs stirred last week with a post highlighting the “ton of useful resources for the developer” and “excellent list of ideas” you’ve helped us share. What do you think?

http://blog.programmableweb.com/2011/08/04/apps-for-the-environment-mr-dev-goes-to-washington/

Editor's Note: The opinions expressed here are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

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