New York City Wants More BigApps, Please

New York City is opening up its government data to hackers in the hopes that they will create some apps to help the people who live there.  Today, it officially opened its BigApps 2.0 challenge (hosted by ChallengePost). Developers will have access to more than 350 data sets from more than 40 different government agencies. The best apps will win $20,000 in prize money.

This is the second year New York City is conducting a BigApps challenge. Last year, 84 apps were submitted, and the winners were Big Apple Ed, Taxihack, WayFinder NYC, and NYC Way. Do you see a theme there? Three of the winning apps help people get around the city and find things to do.

This year, though, the city is opening up some new data to the competition, including the police department’s CompStat crime data, buildings complaints, and real-time traffic information. So what are you waiting for? Go build an app.