5 social applications created on the basis of Code for America

Code for America is a platform for improving municipal services through ICT, as well as communication among government officials, programmers, and civil society activists. Main product: web applications that 1) allow citizens and officials to be connected more quickly and efficiently, 2) increase the transparency and responsibility of the authorities, 3) are publicly available, and therefore can be used by other cities and municipalities.

The consequence of the openness of the created applications is that not only US authorities can use such applications. Do you understand what is at stake? :) Everyone can use! We thought that a review of such open source projects would be helpful.

A little bit about how Code for America works

Code for America operation algorithm:

1. Working with city administrations - identifying actual problems that can help solve web applications, publishing an application for creating an application;
2. Competitive selection of the performer;
3. The customer and the contractor are connected and must create a working application in 11 months;
4. Throughout the process, Code for America specialists conduct training sessions, meetings, and advise both sides of the development process.

As a result, effective communication between the government and society has become a catalyst for the emergence of applications that can change the appearance of cities for the better. And, it is important to note, not only American.
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5 open applications

The application " Where is my school bus? (Where is my school bus) ”allows parents to track the exact time of arrival and the location of their children’s school bus and not be nervous because of its delay.

Iconathon is a portal where users can come up with the design of new signs that designate objects that were not in the city before (roof gardens, bicycle workshops, funicular cars, etc.).

The collection of ideas for improving urban infrastructure allows the platform Change By Us (Changes made by us) . Citizens can exchange ideas, resources, and also offer their time and knowledge in order to make positive changes together.

Muralapp allows citizens to get acquainted with street art. Now, using a smartphone, you can not only look at the art object (graffiti, monument or installation), but also find out who the author was and what he wanted to say.

Reroute is an application that allows users to compare how much time, calories and money they can spend on getting to their destination in various ways (on foot, by bike, by bus, taxi or own car). Perhaps now more people will opt for eco-friendly movement?

Russian analogues

In Russia, as many of you probably know, there are analogues of Code for America. This is Code for Russia and Apps4Russia (Applications for Russia) . However, we haven’t been able to find ready-made and re-openable projects (however, since the contests are still under way, we are confident that Russian colleagues will be able to please the country and the world with open releases).