Using Orlando’s public data, developers seek useful apps
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Melissa Malpica says Orlando has more to offer than just theme parks. She hopes to build a mobile application to help residents and visitors find it.
Malpica, a resident of Orlando who moved here six years ago from the Bronx in New York City, says the app would highlight some of the city’s hidden gems and culture.
“We talk about what we miss from wherever we are from,” she said. ‘We say, ‘There’s no history, no culture here.’ But there are things here even Orlando natives have no idea exist.”
Malpica laid the groundwork for the application Saturday, during the first Data Day Orlando. The meeting explored ways to use public data to build useful technology products for Orlando residents.
The ideas included Malpica’s app as well as a parking-spot locator and a site that would make city-meeting minutes more searchable.
City officials attended the meeting, hoping to build a bridge between Orlando and developers.
“I’m excited to know they are on our side, excited they are building things with us,” said Malpica, whose background is in graphic design.
Organizers say the meeting gives developers a chance to use their skills to help the city’s residents.
For instance, while a seemingly jumbled set of data will likely discourage many from reading through it, developers can simplify them and present them in a more organized way to show, say, publicparking locations across the city.
It’s a way to use technology to simplify data, said Andrew Kozlik, a developer and one of the event organizers who hopes Saturday’s event will lead to a series.
“I have been here 17 years and have never seen people group together around the city like they do now,” Kozlik said. “There has been a surge in people who want to give back to the community.”
A similar event last year, National Day of Civic Hacking, took place in Orlando and more than 100 other cities.
“Civic Hacking is about being resourceful, scrappy and engaged,” said Sarah Elbadri, an organizer of last summer’s event who contributes to the localnews website Bungalower. “… There’s certainly a group of cities that are leading the way when it comes to open-data policies, but Orlando is definitely going to be a leader in our region. A developing relationship with the city of Orlando and Orange County’s information and technology departments is a huge part of that.”
City officials said Orlando’s involvement opens a door of communication between the city and technology experts and that they see value in partnering with the city’s growing development community.
“By providing this information, we are making it easier to interact,” said Matt Broffman, the city’s recently hired director of innovation. “It makes Orlando a better place to live when it’s easier to find parking or a bike rack. That makes Orlando better.”
Code for Orlando, the local group that launched the Data Day gathering, models its activities after several others across the country while working to build useful products for communities.
“We are unique because we have so many technical people working in Orlando,” said Shahier Rahman, a co-organizer of the event. “Data Day is a matter of turning data into information you can use.”