Amsterdam, 25 May 2011

(by Ton Zijlstra)

The AppsforAmsterdam app building competition has ended. Fourty eight applications were submitted, and over twenty of them were lauded during the award session. All apps were based on data sets that had been released in February for this competition by various PSB's in Amsterdam, as well as elsewhere.

With introductory presentations by ePSIplatform's Ton Zijlstra (on local government data's role in cities, in Dutch) and software engineer Mike Lee (renaming Amsterdam to Appsterdam, and launching a Summer of Code, read the vision), the rest of the award session placed all the attention firmly where it belonged: with the developers who made the apps. Over 20 awards were handed out, because the competition wanted to stimulate creativity and diversity, and not turn it into a race where only one can win. All award winners were asked which data they would still love to see published by the city of Amsterdam. This yielded a 'shopping list' for the many civil servants of the city of Amsterdam present. The major awards had separate entry categories for private individuals and companies.

Gold awards went to Energielabel (Energy Label, indicating the energy efficiency of houses, private), and OCO Scholenzoeker (school finder app, company)

Silver awards went to the combination of Peezy and WC-vinder (both public toilet finding apps, private) and Amsterdam Analytics (company)

Bronze awards went to PLAY! Amsterdam (describing the city's 425 playgrounds, private) and erfgoed.mobi (showing historic images for your location, company)

'Energielabel' also won the people's award, winning the public vote on the website.

With 48 applications submitted this is a rich crop of applications from which the city government of Amsterdam can take the inspiration to take next steps in providing PSI for reuse to its citizens.