In less than a week since Popular Choice voting began in our Apps for the Environment challenge, you already placed more than 1200 votes in support of your favorite green apps. We’re excited by the response from the community, but not surprised after people from around the country already submitted almost 100 ideas for apps and created 38 final products that both use EPA data and promote public health. By listening to and working with the community from the beginning, together we’ve gained the momentum in helping developers and entrepreneurs use our environmental data to create innovative services that can make an impact.
We didn’t get here overnight, however – the contributions and leadership of people from coast to coast brought the Apps for the Environment mission into our local communities. The CleanWeb Hackathon recently held in San Francisco brought together a diverse array of engineers, data providers, start-ups, designers and investors to see what kind of useful apps could be created around energy and environment data over the course of a weekend. One-hundred and seventy-five people signed up for 100 spots, including a specialist from our own EPA Region 9 office, to innovate across 60 different data sets.
Despite it being a separate event from Apps for the Environment, multiple developers who participated also submitted to our challenge. This was a big step toward building a sustainable relationship between EPA, the Department of Energy and developers.
Thank you all for you continued participation, and remember, you can still vote for Popular Choice App for the Environment until Oct. 7 – make your voice heard, join our community as a supporter, and let us know how we can work together better as we bring innovation from your ideas to the palms of hands.
