Google Poses Challenge to the Austin Tech Community

The City of Austin has agreed to participate in the first ever Google Place API Developer Challenge.

If you’re a developer, designer or generally tech-savvy, you’re officially invited to the challenge. But there’s something quite different about this event. It is specifically designed to help communities and governments run more efficiently through the use of technology. The idea is to make public information more accessible and useful, so developers will have access to Google’s database to make it easier to build applications on services like Google Maps.

Stephen Elkins, the city’s Chief Information Officer, released a statement Thursday saying “this type of project not only can make us more efficient by also improves upon our transparency and keeps our residents engaged in local government.”  The idea is to leverage Austin’s big tech community to make positive community changes.

The City of Austin is mostly interested in three areas of development: Animal Services to track inventory management and outcomes, crime and public safety statistics, and community engagement tools.

The window for submissions goes from August 15 to October 31. To learn more about how to take the challenge, click here or check out the Google API Developer Challenge blog.