Once again Sweden opens its arms to innovation and technological improvements on the society level. This time, the city of Stockholm is on the lookout for creative ideas that could turn the entire city smarter and more enjoyable for its inhabitants, all through the development of solutions in the form of apps, web services, or project plans based on the city’s open data.
Much like the Democrativity project, the Open Stockholm Award 2014 is an open source, idea submission based competition backed by the government.
The competition goes on until the 30th of April and has three categories: Best solution for traffic and accessibility, Best solution for the environment and sustainability, and Best smart solution for the people of Stockholm.
Competition submissions require a simple registration and those interested to submit must keep in mind that the entries must be solutions in the form of apps, web services or project plans. The entries must be presented in the form intended for the type of submission format you send in. These forms are available for download on the competition website.
Now while contribution with pure intentions can warm any cold blooded man’s heart, the competition offers a good carrot for motivation, probably to ensure that the quality of the entries stays high. The three winners of each category will share a SEK100 000 first prize, which is around €11 000. Additionally, the winners will also receive a diploma signed by the City of Stockholm as well as high coverage by the media and policy makers alike, since the winning entries will be presented to the wider public during the prize ceremony. Last but not least, all submitters own the intellectual property rights to their submissions, including the rights to any source code of the solution, which is all the more carrot to keep you coding.
There’s plenty of details revolving around the competition, but app developers will want to know that the supported platforms are iOS, Android and Windows.
As for the rest, we strongly recommend you to go and check out the competition for yourself; submitting an idea is free and does not require grand computer know-how! As for developers, now’s the ideal time to put your app out there for the greater good (of Stockholm citizens).
The prize ceremony will be held at the “Stockholmsmötet” on May 27, 2014.
