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Tonight, I headed over to the Science Club, a cool little bar in Washington, D.C.  (trust me, it’s cooler than it sounds)  and I heard Tim O’Reilly talk about government 2.0 and social media.  He specifically talks about government transparency,  public/private partnerships and trying to bring web 2.0 into the government.  I was fortunate to have my camera on me and I filmed him talking.  Try to zone out the darkness and background music…

Vivek Kundra, D.C.’s Chief Technology Officer, invited me to his office yesterday to discuss the upcoming inauguration and government operations with the other Apps for Democracy winners.  I walked away from the meeting thinking one thing – Vivek Kundra is a bad ass!  I never in my wildest dreams thought a government official would make it to my top 10 technology hero list.  He now sits along side Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Kevin Rose and Michael Arrington to name a few.

Forget about the fact that he manages a staff of 600 people that provides technology services and leadership for 86 agencies, 38,000 employees, residents, businesses, and millions of visitors, his approach to technology and government spending is unbelievable.  He has taken a $500 million yearly budget and visualized it in such a away that a 4th grader could understand it.  His rationale was that before he arrived, the government was spending an unforeseeable amount of tax payers’ money and nobody could account for it.  Now, everything is elegantly displayed on dashboards that surround what looks like the trading floor of a stock exchange.  The custom built Ruby on Rails solution displays everything you need to know, including budgets, time lines and even a  ‘happiness’ factor.  I’ve seen a lot of cool things and just recently went to the Google I/O conference and the TechCrunch 50 but nothing tops the operation I saw at his office.

If you ever get an opportunity to meet him, don’t hesitate.

After several weeks of hard planning, I’m sure that Peter Corbett of IStrategyLabs is glad to know that the Apps for Democracy was a huge success.  I’m glad that BOALT took home the agency 1st prize and was able to build an application that was going to help the community so much. So what’s next for DCHistoricTours.com?

After speaking with D.C.’s Chief Technology Officer, Vivek Kundra, last night, he told me that one of the reasons we were chosen was because they wanted to use our application on main D.C. inauguration website.  This would provide the many anticipated visitors this January a helpful resource to learn more about our nation’s capitol.  I thought that was pretty exciting so naturally I stayed up last night wondering what I could do to improve the app. (more…)

Mayor Fenty to the left of me.

I just got back from the mayor’s press conference which was held this morning.  BOALT is proud to announce that it won the agency 1st prize for its submission, DCHistoricTours.com.  This is a great accomplishment for us as we just opened our D.C. office 2 months ago.  It was an honor to shake Mayor’s Fenty’s hand and receive the award today!

I wan’t to thank Peter Corbett for all of his hard work and dedication in hosting the contest.  I also want to thank Sichon, Phil and Tim from BOALT for their time and effort over the past 2 weeks in building the application.

UPDATE: Thank you Justin Thorp for sending me your video.

Check out the video of the event:

Also, congrats to Travis Hurant, Tim Koelkebeck and Brian Sobel for winning the Indie 1st prize!

BOALT’s submission to the the Apps for Democracy innovation contest, DCHistoricTours.com, will launch this week as planned.  Please help us win People’s Choice Award by voting for us here.

The contest is being held by the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) which is responsible for D.C.’s technology infrastructure and Peter Corbett of IStrategyLabs.  The contest just kicked off last month and has already received tremendous buzz amongst technology enthusiasts.

With over 19 million visitors each year to our nation’s capital, DCHistoricTours.com is destined to become a successful planning resource for the city’s tourists.  In addition, the timing of the website’s launch couldn’t have been any better with the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

DCHistoricTours.com is integrated in real-time with D.C.’s data catalog, which provides real-time data from multiple agencies to citizens – a catalyst ensuring agencies operate as more responsive, better performing organizations.  The website which is comprised of user generated content allows users to create, view and vote on tours.  It is integrated with Yahoo’s Flickr photos, Yelp restaurant reviews and Wikipedia facts.

For the past couple of weeks since we decided to submit an application to the Apps for Democracy Innovation Contest we’ve been hard at work. After many sleepless nights, triple caramel macchiatos (or was that a quad) and more QA testing, our app is almost here.  I’ve been getting several emails from industry colleagues asking me how things are coming along and I decided to post a screenshot this glorious morning. The tempature is supposed to reach 70 today in D.C. and it’s the middle of November.  Wow, who would have known, I would moved up here a long time ago.  You’ll all be able to play with the app early next week, until then – sayonara.