Increasing Civic Participation Through Democratization of Data

Date: 

Thursday, April 15, 2010, 5:00pm to 6:30pm

Location: 

124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA

Adrian FentyJulia Bezgacheva and David Strigel
Washington, D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer

About the Seminar
Designed to increase civic participation, government accountability, and transparency in government practices, the city of Washington, D.C. created an initiative making virtually all current district government operational data available to the public in its raw form rather than in static, edited reports.

Spearheaded by the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), raw data from multiple D.C. government agencies is housed at the District’s Citywide Data Warehouse (CityDW) and supplied via over 320 data feeds to online sites, citizens, and government agencies to increase civic awareness. In addition, OCTO launched an annual Apps for Democracy contest awarding the best applications that use CityDW data feeds. Its 2008 contest received 47 applications from software developers in 30 days-avoiding an estimated $2.6 million in internal development costs.

The program won the Innovations in American Government Award in 2009.

A light dinner will be served.

You can watch a video about this project here.

About the Speakers
Julia Bezgacheva is a project manager at the Data Transparency and Accountability Program (Citywide Data Warehouse) at D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer. Her responsibilities include coordination with the District agencies and other stakeholders, participating in developing recommendations, policies, and procedures related to the new practices implemented by the Citywide Data Warehouse, and managing application design and development.

David Strigel joined the District government in the summer of 2004 to lead technology projects for the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO). Strigel comes to the District with over 16 years of experience in building Web applications, software, and technologies for companies, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. At OCTO, Strigel leads the Citywide Data Warehouse (CityDW) program planning and managing, technology direction and strategy, service development and rollout, purchasing and contract negotiations, training and deployment strategies, IT strategies and solutions, and customer/partner relationship management.

Innovations in Government Seminar Series
This event is part of the Innovations in Government Seminar Series, which explores various aspects and approaches to the study and replication of government innovation. This year-long series seeks to educate and inform the next generation of government innovators.