Apps for the Environment Forum Celebrates Success
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.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations 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.
Winners Announced for EPA Apps for the Environment Challenge
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://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!
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations 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.
Help EPA Build a Stronger Apps Development Community
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
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations 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.
At the beginning of the summer the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched our first developer challenge, Apps for the Environment, asking coders and entrepreneurs to use EPA data to promote public health and environmental awareness. Today I would like to thank all of you for making the challenge a success! Apps for the Environment received 38 mobile apps ranging from dashboards to consumer-based information to games.
In addition to the diverse submissions, many contributions provided opportunities and insights critical to the success of the challenge and the development of a dialogue between the developer community and EPA. Nearly 100 app ideas were contributed from around the country, providing developers with an understanding of what applications are most needed and what innovations are possible with the use of EPA data. Community voices like Sunlight Labs, Alex Howard of Govfresh and O’Reilly Media, TechPresident, Code-for-America and Mashable helped spread the word, participated in webinar discussions and even supplied enhanced code to developers. American University in Washington, D.C. hosted their first ever code-a-thon to support Apps for the Environment, while Cleanweb in San Francisco encouraged their own participants to take part in the challenge.
Apps for the Environment will not end with your contributions to this single challenge. We have heard your recommendations and ideas and are using them now to shape the way we operate. We have already made enhancements to our Data and Developer Forum and look forward to continuing its evolution.
The Apps for the Environment recognition event, Building Innovation through Partnerships: Apps for the Environment Forum, will be held November 8 at the Artisphere. This event will continue the collaborations we began this summer, recognize participants and winners from the challenge, and explore how we can move forward together to support a sustainable, diverse innovation community. You have been a critical member of our team, and I hope you join us to celebrate the progress we have made and prepare to meet the next challenge.
Sincerely,
Malcolm D. Jackson
Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information
and Chief Information Officer
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations 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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