The Illinois Open Technology team is holding a contest for individuals and teams to create applications that use public data and address Champaign residents’ needs. The contest winner will be awarded $12,000, and the application will be available for free for one year.

Daniel O’Neil is a member of the Illinois Open Technology team and the executive director of Smart Chicago Collaborative. He discussed the goals of Illinois Open Technology on Wednesday with local residents who were interested in participating.

“The Illinois Open Technology Challenge is a project that pulls together government developers and community members into a common mission to use data and technology to solve problems in Champaign,” O’Neil said.

“The challenge itself is that developers can come and take that data and turn it into a Web and mobile application that best serves the community,” said Patrick East, a facilitator for the challenge. “The contest is basically that developers will have one month to make an application, whether mobile or Web application, off the data that we provide and specialize for this community.”

Everyone is encouraged to participate, and there are no specific skill requirements, East said. 

“What we really need is more residents and students who live in Champaign that have ideas that they want to work with developers on,” he said. “They will achieve many advantages to working on the challenge with us. One is that they will make their lives better here in Champaign, and another is to win $15,000.”

Martin Malone, senior in Media and former Illini Media employee, attended the challenge because he was interested in what it had to offer.

“I’m interested in helping with design,” Malone said. “I’m a journalism major, so I’m really interested in helping the community and getting information out there. Also, the prize money is $15,000, which also plays a part in why I’m participating in this challenge.”

One of the rules of the contest is that the inventor of the application has to use a data set that can be found on the data.illinois.gov website. This requirement will ensure that the application will be made specifically for Illinois residents. 

“The idea is that the state and the city of Champaign publish data and put stuff like building permits, tree inventories or restaurant inspections,” O’Neil said. 

As webmaster of the page, East controls what is on the state’s data portal website and is one of the people who makes sure the submissions include data about Illinois.

The application can address either state or local needs. However, Champaign winners will compete against the winners of three other communities: Rockford, Chicago and Chicago suburbs.

O’Neil said that applications will have a better chance to win if they focus on the state of Illinois instead of the city.

Submissions for the application contest are due March 19, and the judging will be held March 23-29.

Atoosa can be reached at [email protected].