What if you could track where the tax money you pay ends up?

This is just the beginning of possibilities that open data can offer. Nothing can help us move forward more than knowing what we can achieve through access to information. When the most important information is distilled, visualized graphically, and explained in clear language, our understanding of data improves by orders of magnitude. And most importantly, people are able to use the data to improve their lives and hold government accountable. That’s what hacking for good does.

Last week on HuffingtonPost Live, Jacob Soboroff discussed the use of technology and data to increase community wellness with Fission Strategy’s Cheryl Contee, Civic Data Challenge 2012 winner Sean McDonald, 2013 participant Erin Brackney, and Ilir Zherka, the executive director of the National Council on Citizenship.

The Civic Data Challenge dares participants to transform raw data into useful instruments for public use. Contee discussed how using and transforming data can increase community engagement and revolutionize how local governments problem solve.
 

Woo, what’s this? Watch the Huffington Post Live Video to see what they were talking about. (Last year's winners: http://vimeo.com/46536254)

“We have the potential — by combining civic data and new technology — to transform how our communities solve challenges, big and small,” said Contee.

Share this post! The deadline is just around the corner on July 28, and winners of that phase will move into the Implementation phase to enhance the usefulness of the tools they create together with community partners.

Full disclosure: The National Conference on Citizenship is a client of Fission, which has helped NCOC run the Civic Data Challenge the last two years. Read more about our work with the challenge.

This article was written collaboratively by Adriana Dakin, Ilena Pegan, and Sean Quinn. 

Adriana Dakin is Vice President of Strategy and Research with Fission. She’s a board member with Young Women Social Entrepreneurs and has a masters in public policy degree from Harvard Kennedy School. Tweet her @apdakin.

Ilena Pegan (@ilenapegan) is an intern with Fission and a student at Bryn Mawr College.

Sean Quinn is a New Media Intern at Fission Strategy. He is a rising senior at the University of Florida, and can be found on Twitter @sdquinn.