Apps for America ~ Sunlight Labs Mashup Contest

Apps for America 1 is over.

This contest is closed. We had our winners! If you want to join in the next contest, see Apps for America 2!

What it Is

Apps for America is Sunlight's annual development contest! Prizes go to developers who can use data from Sunlight and our partners that makes Congress more accountable, interactive and transparent.

How to Compete

  1. Contestants must join the Sunlight Labs Google Group

  2. Entries must be applications that use one of the following APIs or Datasets in their mashup:

Entries can be client applications, web based applications, applications that use the Adobe AIR platform, Java applications or whatever other kind of platform you'd like to write it in. We use Django for most of ours.

  1. While not required, bonus points go to using one of Sunlight's open source libraries

  2. All software you write has to be licensed under the MIT, New BSD or the GPL family of licenses.

Criteria

Awards will be judged based on the following criteria:

  1. Usefulness to constituents for watching over and communicating with their members of Congress

  2. Potential impact of ethical standards on Congress

  3. Originality of the application

  4. Potential usability of the application

  5. Code quality of application

Prizes:

  • First Place (1): $15,000

  • Second Place (1): $5,000

  • Third Place (4): $1,000

  • Honorable Mention (10): $100

An individual can have as many entries as they'd like, and an individual can win one prize per entry they provide, however one entry cannot win more than one prize.

Judges:

  • Adrian Holovaty - Founder, Everyblock.com, Django Project
  • Aaron Swartz - Director, Watchdog.net
  • Peter Corbett - iStrategyLabs
  • Xeni Jardin - BoingBoing.net
  • Clay Johnson - Director, Sunlight Labs

Submission

Submit your application using our app submission form. After approval your app will be added to our contest entry gallery.

Remember to sign up for the Sunlight Labs Google Group too, so you can keep up to date with recent announcements and participate with the community.

  • All submissions will be posted online as soon as they are sent in. Please only send in complete entries. *

Deadline

Submissions are due on March 31st. Winners will be announced on April 7th.

Recently Submitted Apps

  1. CongressCal

    Congress Cal keeps your calendar updated with all the bills before congress.

    Submitted April 1, 2009 by
    13Bit Labs
  2. Maps for America

    Maps for America enables visitors to filter mapped data by political districts, process batches of addresses to find political districts, and puts three new modules in the hands of other Drupal developers to make similar use of Sunlight Labs' APIs.

    Submitted April 1, 2009 by
    Bryan Hirsch
  3. Beyond the Bite

    Beyond the Bite take soundbites from members of Congress, puts them in Congress, and allows concerned citizens to take actions directly.

    Submitted April 1, 2009 by
    Pius Uzamere II
See all submitted apps

Want to Help?

Join Sunlight's growing list of open source civic coders that are helping make government more transparent. It is a big mission and we need as much help as we can get.

Sign up to our google group

Our Transparency Heroes