When you hear of our government using a term such a Code 2015 it can conjure up all kinds of thoughts. Is it a new bill that needs to be passed? Is it some sort of new emergency term, or is it some type of new government program?
The latter is correct in a sense. It is a new government program but more like a contest. At some level you may be interested in it, depending on how computer savvy you are, or how much you use your mobile units.
If you have ever try to find some type of government information, for example like parks and recreations or some form of health data you know how complex that can be, whether it is over the phone or searching on the web.
Our government has a huge amount of data that it has collected for the various departments, but really isn’t that accessible by the public, although it is public information.
You may also be aware that the government has had a real push on to become as electronically friendly as they can. They are encouraging everyone to file their taxes electronically, for example.
Well Code 2015 sort of fits in with this. It is an invitation for computer orientated people to participate in building apps based on the various government databases. To encourage this, the government has set up a yearly competition. So for this year it is Code 2015. This year it began on February 20th and ended on February 22nd, 2015.
They are encouraging it to be a team event. A team can be made up of one to four people. You first have to submit a profile of yourself if you are interested in participating as a VIP Code Hub. You could also become involved in one of the partner hubs. Even if you don’t want to become part of a hub you can still participate.
Even if you are only one person applying, you have to apply as a team. It begins by joining the Code website and creating an account. Once you have followed all the rules and regulation, your submitted app will be judged on 5 criteria. These will be user experience, use of data, innovation, functionality, potential.
There is a Fan Favorite prize of $5,000.
This is just a basic outline of Code 2015. It has some good concepts to it. A lot of people really like using apps for quick access to information that they are looking for when on the go.
It is also good that the government is using interested parties outside of the government for this project. It saves the tax payers money meaning that they don’t have to pay for tech companies to do this.
The motto that you can please everyone all of the time, is somewhat true here. While the Code 2015 is most likely going to produce some great resources, it is not something that everyone will put to the best use.
