Summary

Software developers and interested residents in King County are being asked to help guide the county's expanded access to the public data that it stores. Next week, King County will host the first countywide workshop on open data, bringing together local innovators and county staff to brainstorm next steps for the County's new data ordinance.

Story

Software developers and interested residents in King County are being asked to help guide the county's expanded access to the public data that it stores. Next week, King County will host the first countywide workshop on open data, bringing together local innovators and county staff to brainstorm next steps for the County's new data ordinance.

County Executive Dow Constantine has championed greater accessibility to government and improved government transparency.

"We want to tap into the great technology resources and knowledge in our region to see what's possible," said County Executive Dow Constantine. "By working with local innovators early in this process, we hope to showcase new uses and platforms for county data, which can help us improve service for all county residents. We want to release data sets that are most useful for developers and the public."

King County Open Data Workshop
Tuesday, June 8
5:00-6:30 p.m.
King County Chinook Building
401 5th Ave.
Room 123
Seattle, WA 98104
Directions

Registration is required for this event: https://www.kingcounty.gov/opendata

Municipalities nationwide are using innovative technology to give citizens more access to government. San Francisco recently created a Web site highlighting applications created by the public using that city's data. New York City has also created a Web site that provides data sets with a wealth of information on local businesses, facilities and structures, organizations, social services, and more.

During the King County Open Data workshop, developers and county staff will explore ways to make it easier to share data to encourage innovation and help decide what data sets would help developers build the most robust and useful applications.

King County Metro is already making its data more easily accessible by providing developer support pages on Metro Online with the data in industry standard General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS). The data is free of charge to anyone who agrees to the terms of use.

The agency is doing this to encourage creativity in designing the next great web or cell phone application that will make riding Metro easier and more convenient. The hope is that a countywide open data initiative will jump start similar innovation across other county departments and services, with guidance from the public on what information would be most useful, and help from developers to create complementary applications.

"We are excited to work with local developers on making King County data available in a more user-friendly format for the people of our region,"said Executive Constantine. "The applications coming out of data from San Francisco and New York showcase new ways of serving citizens and we're interested to see what innovation happens based on King County Data."

Any new web or mobile application created using King County data won't be official county products, but, they may be referenced on the county website for customers to use.