Data and Developer Forum A Place to Discuss EPA Data and Developer Resources

Our objective for green apps is to foster the developer community to create more applications so people can make sound environmental decisions. To achieve that objective, we’re looking for ways to encourage the sustainable development and use of green apps and we’d like to hear your ideas for what makes sense. EPA started with our large-scale challenge, EPA’s Apps for the Environment, that provided recognition to developers and yielded 38 apps. To help us build on the success of that effort, we’re interested in your ideas about sustainable models that support developers so they can make green apps. We think it makes sense to partner with organizations that have expertise in supporting developers and promoting apps. So thanks for sharing your reactions to some of the ideas presented below as well as any other ideas you believe EPA should consider. 

In a recent conversation, Troy Abel, Associate Professor of Environmental Policy at Western Washington University (and advisor to Bob Sabie, who won Best Student App, Runner Up in the EPA Apps for the Environment Challenge with his app Environmental Justice Participatory Mapping) suggested a couple of ways to encourage and support developers to make green apps:

• Encourage existing EPA grant programs (e.g., Environmental Justice Grants Program or the People, Prosperity and the Planet Student Design Competition for Sustainability) to explore the role of applicants to consider the role of environmental apps.
• Explore whether large corporations or foundations would want to support an environmental app web site that would collect and promote green apps, and in doing so, encourage more developers to produce environmental apps.

EPA is considering some other ideas such as:

• EPA funding or co-funding a green apps partnerships similar to ChemicalRight2Know, a Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) collaborative forum that the Environmental Council of the States developed through a cooperative agreement with EPA.
• EPA could connect users and developers without formal partnerships. For example, environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other parties could describe their requirements for environmental apps and post them online. The agency could encourage developers to create the apps. Then the NGOs or other parties could sponsor, fund, and host the apps. This effort could be performed in a public online space and several parties could create an app together.

Thanks for posting your reactions to these ideas and sharing ideas of your own.

EPA’s Apps for the Environment Forum recognized the great contributions of developers and other important groups in the green apps community. The five winning app teams were honored, we heard some inspirational talks, and we had a chance to connect with people from diverse backgrounds.

In June we challenged you to use EPA data to create the best Apps for the Environment, and today we are proud to announce the winners!

Thanks to your 100 ideas, 38 apps, more than 2000 votes, and your dedication to using information and technology to support our mission, our judges had a difficult time choosing the winners. Everyone who participated deserves recognition and thanks, and we encourage you to try out all of the entries on the challenge.gov site, and give them a shout out on Twitter using the #GreenApps hashtag.

Also, don’t forget that next week is the Environmental Protection Agency’s Apps for the Environment Forum, “Building Innovation Through Partnerships,” where we will recognize the winners of the competition, engage with developers and open data leaders, and look forward to the future.

The event will be held at the Artisphere in Arlington, Virginia (1101 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA, 22209) on Tuesday, November 8th.  The Forum will begin at 1:00 p.m. and end at 5:15 p.m., and include  exhibitor booths, special guests like U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, EPA CIO Malcolm Jackson, and of course the stars of the event: the amazing developers who submitted 38 mobile apps! If you can’t be there in person, be sure to see it live via Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/usepa.

And now, the winners of the EPA Apps for the Environment challenge are:

Winner, Best Overall App

Light Bulb Finder

by Adam Borut and Andrea Nylund of Eco Hatchery

http://appsfortheenvironment.challenge.gov/submissions/4571-light-bulb-finder

Runner Up, Best Overall App

Hootroot

by Matthew Kling of Brighter Planet

http://hootroot.com/

http://appsfortheenvironment.challenge.gov/submissions/4618-hootroot

Winner, Best Student App

EarthFriend

by Will Fry and Ali Hasan of Fry Development Company and Differential Apps

http://appsfortheenvironment.challenge.gov/submissions/4180-earthfriend

Runner Up, Best Student App

Environmental Justice Participatory Mapping

By Robert Sabie, Jr., Western Washington University      http://appsfortheenvironment.challenge.gov/submissions/4611-environmental-justice-participatory-mapping

Popular Choice Award

CG Search

By Rajasekaran Bala of Cognizant Technology Solutions

http://appsfortheenvironment.challenge.gov/submissions/4620-cg-search

Again, congratulations to everyone who participated in the challenge and we look forward to partnering with you in the future!

The Apps for the Environment Challenge has ended and we are very excited to receive 38 high quality entries. EPA is wrapping up the challenge activities and planning the forum to publically celebrate the winners on November 8. We hope many of you can make it to the forum to congratulate the winners and continue our ongoing discussion. We consider the significant engagement with developers and apps users as big a success as the submissions themselves. Discussions with you helped EPA learn about how we can help people use our information and what we could do to support future apps development. Here at EPA we are thinking of ways to continue fostering this community and growing it into the future.  What better place than this board to start a discussion about building a community centered on data and environmental apps. In order to start the discussion, here are a few topics that EPA is particularly interested in learning about from you:

• The best ways to connect suggestions for apps with developers interested in those apps

• Building robust communities around data between EPA, developers and end users of those data

• Making development easier for external developers who wish to build apps with our data