San Diego (Open Data) App Challenge and other GIS Competition News

Mayor Sanders and the City of San Diego are challenging the software developer community to create new apps using city and partner data. They’re also inviting the public to share their ideas for innovative new apps.

Winners will receive $50,000 in cash prizes as well as promotional exposure. Prizes will be awarded for apps that enhance city services and quality of life for San Diegans, and that use the data in innovative ways. Submitted apps can run on the web, desktop computers, tablets, or smartphones. The public is encouraged to share application ideas related to energy, tourism, economic development, transportation, the environment, health and other areas.

The public will have one month to share ideas for San Diego apps they’d like to see created. Developers will have approximately three months following the challenge launch to build their submissions. A panel of distinguished judges from the tech industry, venture capital, and partner institutions will select winners, and the general public will vote to identify two “Popular Choice” winners.

The Get Outdoors Massachusetts contest is open to the public and seeks public participation in developing technologies that feature Massachusetts outdoor and natural resources. The goal of the competition is to provide software developers with data to create a mobile application for the public to use a smart phone to map to public lands, access points and other outdoor venues for outdoor recreation. The agencies will provide data about state parks, wildlife management areas, public boat ramps, agricultural tourism locations and parking locations and lists of available activities at each facility or location.

The 2012 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest is designed to investigate the potential of multi-modal/multi-temporal fusion of very high spatial resolution imagery. This year, participants will download three different sets of images (optical, SAR, and LIDAR) over the downtown of San Francisco and each participant will get to choose their own research topic to work with. Proposals should describe in detail the addressed problem, the method used, and the end result.

Nottingham Using GIS to Save City and Residents on Electric Bills and other Government GIS News

Nottingham seems to have turned a "first place finish" in the energy price increase rankings into a GIS services aimed at saving government and residents on electricity bills.

Nottingham was identified as the UK city most sensitive to rising electricity prices in a study by GIS specialist Esri UK and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). The study applied the technology to socio-economic data to map which areas of the UK will be hardest hit by rising energy prices this winter.

That turned into a grant.

The council won £200,000 in funding from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and is working with the Nottingham Energy Partnership and Esri to develop and deliver the maps, which go beyond standard static maps of energy flows. Dynamic mapping will comprise layers of information that may be updated to inform decisions on energy generation, development and reducing its carbon footprint.

The system, already in use internally, will be made available to the public. It's not clear how residents will use the dymnamic mapping but they can use it to find if their house might be a fit for solar panels and how much they'd save with new windows. The article is not clear on if the city has full 3D model of residences for calculating savings.

- The Guardian

A shoutout is due to a father and son team who are helping Washington state get its redistricting done fairly.

Vancouver resident John Milem was dubbed the “ultimate redistricting geek” in a tweet Friday by Seattle Times politics writer Jim Brunner. On Sunday, the state Redistricting Commission passed a resolution recognizing Milem as the equivalent of the redistricting volunteer of the year. Milem describes himself as an “advocate for redistricting in the public interest.”

Without pay or position, the 75-year-old resident of Vancouver’s Fircrest Neighborhood attended all of the commission’s 18 public forums around the state and all of the commission’s other regular and special meetings in Olympia, with the exception of three. (He missed two meetings because he was taking part in Clark County’s redistricting process for county commissioner seats). His son, Mark, customized open-source software on which Milem developed independent state maps, suggestions and corrections that would streamline the election process and represent the character of communities. 

Thank you for your service!

- The Columbian

The Greater Bridgeport Regional Council (GBRC) is asking the state of Connecticut for a $1.4M grant to develop GIS mapping system to be shared by several towns.

Update: BBC 2G/3G Map and other Crowdsourcing GIS News

The BBC has rolled out the first edition of its crowdsourced 2G/3G map. There were 44,000+ people who downloaded the app that collected data for the map. The Register does some analysis and suggests for the most part the map matches those from carriers, but is "optimistic" in some areas.

- The Register

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Massachusetts Common Cause Hosting Redistricting Contest

Participants can redraw Congressional, State Senate and State House boundaries for a chance to win cash. Common Cause will choose its favorite and pass on the winning maps to the Joint Legislative Committee on Redistricting. The contest uses Dave’s Redistricting Software. Entries are due August 30. This is a great activity for students!

- details via Gloucester Times

GIS Efficiency in Auburn, GA and other Government GIS News

Cook said that same GIS technology used to determine the new trash collection routes has also revealed that the number of customers receiving weekly garbage pickup, recycling and waste collection has grown by nearly a third during the last decade. Despite that growth, the city’s Environmental Services Department hasn’t increased its workforce since 2001, according to Cook. Environmental Services currently has a staff of 31 employees.

The city is rejigging its routes to " to maximize efficiency and minimize the utilization of fuel on each day’s route” and means more than half of residents will have trash pickup on a new day starting in August. I suspect the use of GIS is helping keep the staff numbers the same as residents served rises.

- WRBL

Belmont, MA is asking the public to report coyote sightings.

The tool, developed by a small Arlington-based company, PeopleGIS Inc., has registered nearly 30 coyote sightings since it was put into use in May.