Sunlight Foundation
 

Making Government Transparent and Accountable

The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government

 

The Sunlight Foundation Blog

  • Making Cities Think Like the Web

    By Ellen Miller on 12/04/08 @ 5:35 pm | 0 Comments

    Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, gave a very interesting talk (audio and slide show available) at last month’s Web 2.0 Summit in Toronto. Mark advocates creating cities that think like the Web – and says cities can learn from projects like Mozilla.

    Mark’s main point: openness and participation created a better Internet…They can also create a better city. Much like how Mozilla formed a decade ago to open up the Internet, improve the Web and encourage people to participate, the same principles of openness and participation can also help make better cities.

    (Continue reading…)

  • Apps for Democracy: 2 Days Left to Compete

    By Ellen Miller on 11/11/08 @ 2:15 pm | 0 Comments

    The District has been getting major kudos for its IT projects and which are well-deserved. DC’s data catalog, for instance, has tons of open data feeds (more than its share about crime, alas), and provides real-time data from multiple agencies. The District puts it online to act as a catalyst to encourage agencies to operate more responsively and timely.

    Vivek Kundra, Washington, D.C.’s chief technology officer, launched a contest (with substantial financial prizes!) titled Apps for Democracy. DC is looking for  useful Web applications using the District government’s data catalog. The winning designers who create the best widgets, Google Maps mash-ups, iPhone apps, Facebook apps, and other digital utilities will split $20,000 in $2,000 to $100 allotments.

    A couple weeks ago, Nancy Scola at TechPresident wrote about the contest. And she linked to Matthew Burton who blogged about it as well.

    If interested, you’ll have to work fast. The deadline for submissions is tomorrow (Wednesday November 12th). Here is the submission guide.

    A quick review of the apps already submitted shows that many have to do with crime. Yikes! Things are getting better here in our nation’s capital in this regard. Seriously.

    And full disclosure. I’ve been asked to be a judge.