New York, NY – Bloomberg to Allow Entrepreneurs to Tap Into Government Data

New York, NY – New York City’s government agencies are sitting on a deep reservoir of data — a geeky treasure trove of information on topics ranging from crime reports, building complaints and traffic stats to public health.

The city doesn’t have the resources to unlock all the potential buried in that data. So it appealed to those who do: The city’s tech entrepreneurs.

NYC turned them loose on more than 350 public data sets, and asked developers to invent Web and mobile applications that would use the data in intriguing ways.

More than 50 teams took up the challenge.

It’s all part of Bloomberg’s push to spur tech entrepreneurship in New York City. In his remarks, Bloomberg called intellectual capital New York’s ace in the hole.

“Our business strategy is to make New York a place where those people want to come,” he said.

By opening up vast amount of data, the city hopes to attack two challenges at once: seed new local businesses, and build a better New York.

“As you’re moving to an era where social media is increasingly important, there’s no better way to test the network effect then in New York City,” New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinksy said. “It’s a great example of crowdsourcing for the purpose of economic development.”

David Mahfouda, who worked on a startup called “wheels,” wanted to create an app that would make transportation around the city less of a headache by allowing people to order cabs in real time. He figures any technology that takes off here can scale elsewhere.

“One of the reasons we’re in New York [is that] this is one of the best places to test the networking,” Mahfouda said.