Daily Detroit
Detroit has been legendary in the past, in some respects, for all the wrong reasons. One of those reasons has been it’s historically been difficult to deal with city hall.
One way to change that is to make data available to all, or what’s called in tech parlance “open data.” After all, data is knowledge, and knowledge is power. Initiatives like Loveland have given Detroiters a little taste of what’s possible with open data, but recently, the doors have flung open when it comes to getting information from the city, if you know where to go.
Accessing everything from crime reports to property data was a muddy, annoying and painful process, but now there’s a litany of tools for people to use over at http://wwww.detroitmi.gov/data.
It’s an impressive turnabout for a city as large and with as many challenges as Detroit. But how does that happen? What precipitated this rather large shift in a city that has had past leadership that was, in short, shifty?
Not to mention, the amount of Detroit data available can feel immense at first, but tied together in the right way, could be really useful. Almost everything is there, from bike routes to road signs to police data to Detroit Public School locations.
There’s a $5,000 prize to a winning individual or team who makes an app using this newly open data. It’s done in partnership with Automation Alley, and the judges are Beth Niblock, Chief Information Officer of the city of Detroit; Sean Hurwitz, CEO of Pixo Group; Brian Balasia, the CEO of Digerati; and Will McDowell, a Detroit Labs business analyst. Anyone can register, but the participation is limited to 65. It’s $20, includes breakfast and lunch, and closes June 5.
We exclusively talked last week to Garlin Gilchrist II, who’s been in the driver’s seat for some of these open data initiatives. He’s a Detroit native and after college at the University of Michigan and working time in Seattle for Microsoft and Washington D.C., he came back to raise his family in his hometown and hopefully, through his work, make a difference.
Daily Detroit: So where did the idea of moving Detroit towards open data start from? Because historically, there’s a reputation of the city in the past not being open and transparent with data. What was the impetus and what are you hoping going forward with this for citizens?
Gilchrist II: I would first say the credit goes to Mayor Duggan, for really coming in and wanting to reset the relationship between Detroiters and city government. One way to reestablish your commitment to a relationship is saying, “You know what? I’m going to be honest with you, I’m gonna be clear with you, I’m gonna be as transparent as I possibly can with you.” That principle is where this comes from.
There’s really a movement around the globe and around the country where more and more cities are starting to enact policies like this that say that we’re no longer going to hide behind the Freedom of Information Act, we have come to the realization, which was always true, that the data and the information that we generate is essentially public so we need to give it to the public in a way that humans can understand and that machines can process.
But to answer your question on where we see this going? Open data, I believe, is really foundational to having the City of Detroit be a key player in the emerging, innovation economy in this city. There are all sorts of opportunities for everything from new business models to new opportunities for accountability within government that are enabled when the city is being open and transparent about how about we do business and how we operate. So I am all for finding as many opportunities for people to take advantage of this as possible.
Read the full interview here.