Culture
Chicago's Secrets, Revealed Through User-Friendly Apps
The Open City group turns government data into apps on crime, snow plows, even lobbying efforts.
In mid-2011, the City of Chicago released a whole bunch of inside information about lobbyists onto its open data portal. Who paid them, what they lobby for, what parts of city government they lobby to — all in spreadsheet form, all there for the taking. So Derek Eder and some other civic-minded tech colleagues took, and before long they gave back, in the form of ChicagoLobbyist.org.
"It's essentially kind of like a Facebook for lobbyists," says Eder.