The contest seeks to reward developers of the most useful, creative, and effective web-based applications and tools, to allow people to easily make use of the City of Ottawa’s data.
Summary of Rules
The contest rules were designed to stimulate creativity and innovation, rather than constrain it. The contest is open to residents of the province of Ontario. City staff will be eligible to enter applications but will not be eligible for monetary prizes.
Applicants may enter a software application designed for a mobile handheld device, desktop computer, website, or any other software platform broadly available to the residents of the City of Ottawa.
While participants will be encouraged to use at least one data set from the City of Ottawa Open Data Catalogue, they do not have to. The aim of the contest is to generate improvements to the community through the use of applications that use publicly available data; as long as applicants build an application that will enhance the City of Ottawa, they may use any data that is publicly available.
Ownership of software applications will remain with the developer of the application.
All residents of Ontario over the age of 16 are eligible to enter the contest.
Important Dates
- Competition Entry Period
- 5:00pm September 29, 2010 – 5:00pm January 3, 2011 EST
- Public Voting Period
- 12:00pm January 4, 2010 – 5:00pm January 28, 2011 EST
- Judging Period Begins
- January 4, 2011
- Awards Ceremony
- February 15, 2011
Categories
The five categories have been designed to address diverse aspects of a healthy community.
- Having Fun in Ottawa
- Getting Around
- Green Environment/Sustainability
- Community Building
- Economic Development
Prizes
The prize structure includes tiered awards (i.e. Gold, Silver, Bronze) for each category and one prize for “Best Overall Application”. Eligibility for one prize is limited to the student community.
The following table outlines the prize structure and participant categories:
| Prize | Count | Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Category 4 | Category 5 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 19 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $50 000 |
| Gold | 5 | $5000 | $5000 | $5000 | $5000 | $5000 | $25 000 |
| Silver | 5 | $2000 | $2000 | $2000 | $2000 | $2000 | $10 000 |
| Bronze | 5 | $1000 | $1000 | $1000 | $1000 | $1000 | $5000 |
| Best Overall | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | $3000 |
| Best Student App | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | $3000 |
| People’s Choice | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | $2000 |
| Draw Prizes | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | $1500 |
| Giveaways | — | — | — | — | — | — | $500 |
Award Criteria
Winning selection criteria will focus on attributes including (but not limited to):
- Usefulness - utility to residents of Ottawa overall, or any particular demographic of users in Ottawa
- Originality - uniqueness and inventive nature of the application
- Ease of Use - the overall usability of the application
- Access - ability for the application to be used by a broad array of citizens
Judges
All qualified entries will be judged by the individuals listed below, based on the categories and criteria outlined below. Judges will determine winners for all awards except the People’s Choice award, which will be determined by public voting on this web site.
Our panel of judges includes:
- Councilor Wilkinson (Chair of the IT Sub-committee)
- Eric Marois (La Cite Collegiale)
- Claude Haw (OCRI)
- Rick O’Conner (The Ottawa Network)
- Tracey Lauriault
- Cameron Wilson
- Dr. Gerald Grant (Carleton University)