Auckland Transport’s data will be open to hackers in the coming months, to encourage a movement to make government departments more open with their information.
A key goal of the event is to establish a community that will drive the civic hacking and open government data agenda in Auckland.
Designers, developers and innovators are being encouraged to register for the weekend of ‘hacking for good’ in what will be Auckland’s first ‘civic hackathon’.
HACKAKL:Transport is free to attend and is being supported by Auckland Transport in conjunction with AUT University and software house Propellerhead.
The event will bring together bright minds who are interested in utilising open government data to develop fresh ideas that will help improve the ctiy.
In the run-up to the event, Auckland Transport will publish a beta application programming interface (API) that will open up a wide range of the organisation’s data, including real-time bus information, geo-coding, roading and congestion data.
Auckland Transport General Manager of Business Technology Roger Jones says this is a great opportunity for the organisation to open itself up to new ideas and innovation.
Propellerhead’s Managing Director Andrew Weston says he loves the idea of being able to democratise government data.
“This is an exciting opportunity to use crowd-sourcing of ideas to find innovative solutions to some of the everyday problems we face in Auckland.”
AUT University Senior Lecturer at CoLab: Creative Technologies James Charlton will be onsite as a creative advisor during HACKAKL:Transport.
The event will be held on May 24 and 25 at AUT University’s Sir Paul Reeves Building.