There are plenty of apps that let you share clothes, hail cabs, and procure food on-demand, but there are few that make your community a better place to live. Two civic-minded online organizations are trying to encourage tech solutions for actual problems with Ideation Nation, a civic hacking competition.
The tech nonprofit Code for America and online engagement platform MindMixer have winnowed more than 350 submissions down to 25 finalists, and you get to pick the winner. Voting closes Friday. The list of finalists includes ideas as varied as a social network for nonprofits, a community app for sharing resources, and a mobile payment solution for traffic cops.
Code for America and MindMixer launched the Ideation Nation project before the Healthcare.gov debacle, but Code for America co-executive director Abhi Nemani said the Obama Administration's technology troubles prove that the government could use a little outside help.
"It's funny that the timing [of the contest] worked out this way when we were talking about ways the government can do this better," Nemani said. "Healthcare.gov—you saw them build it, launch it, and then it broke. We want to show government that this process can be open."
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