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Fed CTO Aneesh Chopra

Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra spoke at the Open Government and Innovations Conference in Washington, DC yesterday, about the government’s need to play catch up with the private sector’s technological capabilities.

Chopra used competitions like Apps for Democracy and Apps for America as examples of the government’s commitment to the open-government initiative of President Barack Obama.

The Apps for America competition is still open for submission through today. So far only four applications have been submitted. The competition requires applications to use data from Data.gov. Top Dangerous Mines highlights the most dangerous mines in the US based on earthquake data and then there’s the F.B.I. Fugitive Concentration matching game. It’s just like the match game you played with a deck of cards as a kid but this deck has photos pulled from the FBI’s Fugitive RSS Feeds.

Chopra pointed out the importance of accountability for the administration to an open government. “I am equally committed to holding myself accountable, and in turn asking you to hold me accountable, for us to deliver on promises, so that we show progress,” Chopra said.

Since the ascension of the first hunter-gatherer to chief of the hunter-gatherers, man has worried about the power of his rulers. He has worried about transparency. He wondered whether all the meat was being shared and whether the chief was wearing too many of the hide–I’m sorry I don’t know what I’m talking about. It was supposed to be deep. I was going to go on to compare the evolution of the chief to the modern president and neo-colonialism but then I realized that I had no idea what I was talking about. The point I making is that the same concerns hold true today. I want to make sure that we as a people aren’t being taken advantage of by those in power. I want to live in a place where all information is made public and the American people and other citizens of the world have easy access to this information.

As a technology and interactive businessman, I’ve seen the push by nations like communist China to require the internet be censored and their people left in the dark. This year was the twenty year anniversary of Tiananmen Square, an important event in the history of the struggle between communist Chinese leaders and the people who want nothing more than the freedoms we take for granted. It’s frightening and although we don’t have the same censorship when it comes to the internet, we do face challenges in our search for information.

Open Data Democracy is something touched on previously on this blog but this is slowly becoming the BOALT manifesto, as we look toward the future of this nation and our world. I recognize as a for-profit businessman the power and reach of information but also as a person active in the political community of DC I recognize the lack of technological advancement of the government when it comes to the dissemination of information. Although we’re far away from being able to access our own FBI files online, we shouldn’t be that far away from accessing infant mortality rates of northwest Ohio.

The task that stands before the government is more daunting. We live in a nation of 300 million people spread out over an area of thousands of miles. The public and government data of an area that size is beyond the scope of anything previously compiled. The hurdles are even more daunting. We have 50 states with almost as many different ways of compiling their state data.

If you visit Data.gov and click on STATE/LOCAL you’ll see that only 2 states, California and Utah, and the District of Columbia have created state websites that you as a citizen can go to find government compiled information about your area. Although this is a start the problem that exists now is that the California, Utah and DC information is in different formats. There isn’t a uniform standard for government agencies to work from. Imagine if the mail system didn’t have guidelines for how you address an envelope. The mail would take forever to be delivered. There needs to be an information standard that all government agencies have to follow, from the smallest town in rural Montana to the Oval Office. Nothing would make it easier than a national, if not international standard. Eventually, I hope, the world will be more willing to share information on a global scale, and so an international standard is not so far-fetched. There are a few things that I suggest doing to get us closer to a national standard:

1. Support contests like AppsForDemocracy.com. Open Data Democracy is a bit dry and boring but contests like Apps for Democracy raise awareness for the issue by showcasing the amazing applications that can be created and how the average citizen can benefit. For example AreYouSafeDC.com is an application for your iPhone that takes crime data from Data.gov and other sites to tell you how safe an area of DC is.

2. Create and release free tools that make the transition to a national standard easy for small municipalities without the tech know-how of large cities to implement.

3. Change has to be inexpensive as well. Smaller communities can’t afford large overhauls of existing systems.

4. Lay out guidelines and standards in easy to follow and easy to access ways. For example, on Data.gov a page should be included with explicit and easy to follow instructions for communities to lay out their data for faster implementation.

Looking at the government’s first steps towards Open Data Democracy, I’m confident that a global standard can be achieved someday and we can all live in world where ideas and information is exchanged freely and fairly. An information utopia.

One of President Obama’s first actions when he took office was to sign the Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on Transparency and Open Government (a mouthful). The first sentence of the memo lays out his administration’s commitment to an open government.

From this bold beginning, Obama’s administration has created Data.gov and updated existing sites like USAspending.gov. All of this is part of a much broader agenda known as Government 2.0. Think Mac OS 10.5. The government is upgrading. Don’t get too excited. It doesn’t mean the government is actually changing, it just means that now they are finally grasping the power of the computer and information. They finally understand that the American people are tired of being kept in the dark and that we want to know what is going on with our elected officials. My soap box is high today, so you’ll have to excuse me.

One of the most notable aspects of the Government 2.0 initiative is what is called the democratization of data. Another mouthful. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but we have to give the government a break; their job isn’t being clever like ours is. That’s why we’re calling it an Open Data Democracy. It sounds much better. It sounds official. I’ll go so far as to say it sounds presidential. I’ll even give Obama’s administration permission to use it, as long as he calls and asks personally. The goal of democratizing data is to make data more easily available to the public. We all know how difficult it is to find or get anything from the government, so the new push for a transparent and easily accessible government is an amazing advancement.

In honor of the founding of our very own Open Data Democracy, BOALT has created Sound Off to give a voice to the people. Sound Off searches Twitter to find out what people are saying about our government officials. We have the first couple, John McCain, Sarah Palin and several others. Some of it is good, some of it is bad but it’s all real and straight from the mouths of the people.

Here’s a screenshot below. But I’m not giving it all away. You have to visit the site to see everything. Most of you won’t be surprised to see who the more popular person is on Twitter right now. (Sorry Mrs. Palin, it’s not you.)