The rules of the competition are pretty open: build tools that are cool and socially useful. But what kind of applications do we expect? Here’s a short intro to get you in the mood. And feel free to ask.

Tim O’ Reilly: work on stuff that matters

Today, developers are able to create with little time and money cool, lightweight applications, which help solving particular collective problems from the point of view of the users. Web 2.0 guru Tim O’ Reilly encourages developers to “work on stuff that matters”.

Here we list some of the projects we are looking for. Yet such initiatives appear to be developed mainly in the UK and US. INCA aims to encourage Flemish developers to create similar tools.

Projects we like:

Everything MySociety does, such as:

Fixmystreet, where citizens can report problems in their local environment and report if the local authority has solved the problem.
Planningalerts lets citizens subscribe to an email alert system which informs them each time a planning application is approved in their neighbourhood, based on data scraped from local government websites.
TheyWorkForYou.com collects information about politicians in order to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their elected and unelected representatives in Parliament and other assemblies.

Tools developed at camps such as Sicamp.org and Rewiredstate.org :

Epic Bin is a service that reminds you the day before your greenbox and bin collections take place, and what they can take.
Rate your prison is a prototype to share the experience of visits to prison, complain and suggest improvements on better ways to organise the service and reduce distress.
EnabledByDesign helps people share needs and ideas about well designed assistive technologies

The tools funded through the US appsfordemocracy initiative:

DC historic tours help you organize walks around Washington, through a GoogleMaps mashup of flickr photos and Wikipedia entries.
The CarPool matchmaker helps people find carpools that fit their preferences and location, in order to inspire people to travel in a more environmentally friendly way.
Libraries near me is a location aware iPhone app that will show you nearby libraries in Washington, DC.