Mayor Kip Holden is encouraging Baton Rougeans to participate in “National Day of Civic Hacking” on Saturday by checking out data websites like Open Data BR and seeing if the sites can be improved.
The Open Data BR site, launched in January, features a wide range of public data, from police and fire reports to permits and traffic incidents. The aim of Open Data BR is to increase transparency and accessibility of all public information in Baton Rouge. Users are free to read, download or use anything published to the website.
Eric Romero, Baton Rouge interim information services director, says information taken from sites like Open Data BR can be used to create other websites and applications, such as a dashboard of the local economy or a site to keep residents up to date during emergency situations. In fact, some already have.
“Several applications have already been developed using our city-parish data, and through this newfound access to data as well as events like National Hacking Day, we look forward to what is yet to come from the innovative minds that make up our Baton Rouge community,” Romero says in a news release.
One such app, called BTR Crime, has been created by local developer James Davis of Sabot Solutions. It’s currently available for download on the Apple Store and was developed using city-parish police incident data.
“The Open Data BR initiative is definitely taking Baton Rouge in the right direction and served as the inspiration for my iOS app, BTR Crime, that provides users with the ability to easily visualize crime patterns in Baton Rouge,” Davis says.
The national hacking initiative aims to promote the use of publicly available information to solve civic and political problems. The event is led by Code for America, a nonprofit organization that works to supply the digital infrastructure needed to organize and provide access to public data.
“In proactively providing open access to large amounts of data, we in turn challenge those in our community to embrace this level of access and work with us to become catalysts for change,” Holden says.
