US Launches Digital Roadmap To Open Up Government Data And Court Developers

There’s all sorts of data that the government has, but very little of it is actually accessible by developers. But the U.S. Government is trying to change that: Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt, US Chief Technology Officer Todd Park and Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel announced a new initiative within the government to open up data that was previously locked up in government documents and arcane backend systems. That will allow developers to create new applications and services based on that data.

The digital roadmap is based on the following five ideas:

Open Data as the new default
Anywhere, anytime on any device
Everything should be an API
Make government data social
Change the meaning of social participation

And here are five projects that Park and VanRoekel announced as part of the initiative:

The launch of a portal called MyGov, aimed to be a user-friendly website for government services.
The launch of the 20% Campaign, a way to move from cash payments to mobile payments overseas.
Introduction of a program called RFP-EZ, which will let startups that don’t usually compete for government projects have access to them.
The launch of Blue Button for America, which will let developers create apps to allow US citizens to have access to their own health data.
Open data for access from new industries, including energy, education, non-profits, and safety.