Rock Creek Roundup (September 9 Edition)

Posted by: Meagen Ryan, Director of Strategy Sep 09, 2011 0 Comments

Challenge.gov celebrates its first birthday, NASA develops a web application, social media helps people connect over 9/11, and smartphones make surveying damage easier, all in this week’s version of the Rock Creek Roundup.

—After challenging tech minds around the country, Challenge.gov shares its success and statistics with a first anniversary video. Over the year, Challenge.gov has asked people to participate in challenges through crowdsourcing to solve problems in the government and public sector. The program boasts impressive engagement statistics: 36 participating agencies, 1,515 submissions, $38 million in prize money, and 115 solutions sent to agencies. In their anniversary video, Challenge.gov interviews past winners and open government leaders asking them to share their experiences. Social media, too, has played a big part in the program with over 50,000 tweets and around 50,000 Facebook posts.

—While mobile apps are all the rage, NASA has developed a web-based application that lets you explore the solar system in 3-D. Using video game technology, NASA lets you control your view and speed up time to see the motion of planets, satellites, and spacecrafts. The Eyes on the Solar System app is free to download with the requirement of Unity Web Player software. According to NASA, the application is the first program to allow people to see the entire solar system and NASA’s missions in real-time. As one of the most open and tech-savvy agencies, NASA is sharing its technology and passions with the public through social media and applications.

—With the ten year anniversary of 9/11 on Sunday, social media is making it possible to get more information and share experiences more than ever. Whether you want to learn more or become a part of the historical record, there are new ways to participate. Internet Archive, a nonprofit, started the Understanding 9/11 project to collect the mass amounts of footage for research and analysis. Another site, Broadcastr, invites you to join in Broadcastr’s September 11 Memorial which will let you memorialize your story in person, online, or on the phone. With social technologies making leaps and bounds to connect us, shared experiences will be much easier to retell and record.

—After a summer of natural disasters and emergencies, smartphones are making it easier to survey the damage and get working towards recovery. In the recent past, Army Corps of Engineers inspecting flood damage were required to jot down detailed directions to possible damage of a dike or levee so the next group could find it. During the recent Missouri River flood, surveyors were able to use a smartphone application for the Android that links photos, video, and text on flood damage with GPS information directly to Omaha headquarters. The new app, called MICA, allows the Corps to aggregate large amounts of data into a chart similar to Google Maps without the paperwork and manual insertion of written data. With more flooding expected in coming weeks, the application will be a helpful tool to make life easier.

Meagen Ryan

Director of Strategy

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