Silicon Valley has always been the heart of the startup scene, but some exciting companies are sprouting up here in New York, too. In an effort to nurture that growth, New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the NYC BigApps 3.0 competition, where small companies or your average Joe can submit applications using official city data. And for the winners? $50,000.
In its third year, the BigApps 3.0 competition is offering approximately 750 data sets to developers, along with APIs from bit.ly, DonorsChoose.Org, Etsy, Foursquare, Tumblr, Hunch, Meetup, GetGlue , Magma, Min.us, NewsBlur, Readability, Yipit, RecordSetter, among others who may be added to the list in the future. Five app categories have been added into the competition including Best Green App, Best Health App, Best Education App, Best Mobility App, and Best NYC Mashup App.
The Mashup App award winner will be the developer who best combines the NYC city data and an API of their choice. That winner will be rewarded with the additional prize of a meeting with a representative of the startup whose API was used. All in all, 13 cash prizes will go out to lucky developers, along with a number of non-monetary prizes including NY Tech Meetup demo slots, two TechStars finalist spots, and membership in the inaugural BigApps Founders Network, which will offer support services to help winners launch or build their startups.
Only companies with fewer than 50 employees are eligible to win the big bucks, but companies larger than that can still enter to get the recognition they surely deserve. To enter, you must head over to the competition web site and get yourself registered before 5pm EST on January 25, 2012.
Happy hacking, everyone!