Inspiration

More background on this year’s theme “inclusive society”

Inspiring examples

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.

INCA ‘09:

Of course, you can take a look at the INCA ’09 submissions for inspirations.  Keep in mind that the theme of this year’s competition is different and the originality is one of the evaluation criteria though!

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