NC Datapalooza held its official kickoff last month during the third annual NC DataJam event held at the American Underground @ Main. Organizers led almost 80 attendees through ideation sessions and education sessions before six teams presented their ideas.
With only a few hours to prepare and sift through numerous open data sets from local, state, and federal repositories, teams put together 5-minute presentations to a panel of esteemed judges. Teams will continue to compete for the $5,000 grand prize, including seed funding. Over the next 90-days they will finesse their projects and drive towards the final NC Datapalooza event in September.
Teams can still enter the competition until June 13.
Organizers hope to attract additional interest from CityCamp NC (citycampnc.org) and the Triangle startup community. NC Datapalooza will provide mentoring, skills assessment, and preparation through round two of the competition which concludes on August 8. The final three teams will be chosen then.
The six presenters at the kickoff:
- Affordable housing connector – aims to use open data and software to build trust between landlords, clients, and others in the community.
- OpenFit – looks to track open food illnesses and increase awareness of food borne illnesses by combining inspections and self reporting.
- FreeWheelingNC – wants to provide a personal recommendation on the safest way for you to bike using a state-wide dataset compiled over the last two years.
- YoFlow – wants to help reduce water usage by aggregating Town of Cary usage reports.
- Service U – looks to use open data to help constituents find out where meals are available.
- OpenKPIi – aims to present data in a usable way by cleaning data and leveraging what other cities have done to predict things such as fire and health outcomes.
For more information, visit the NC Datapalooza website at http://www.ncdatapalooza.com/
