About This Competition

This is a competition about information, about communication and above all about making government information more useful.

The government produces masses of information on what is happening around the UK. Infomation on crime, on health, on education. However, this information is often hidden away in obscure publications or odd corners of websites. Data tucked away like this isn't  of use to the ultimate owner of that information YOU.

The Power of Information Taskforce want to hear your ideas on how to reuse, represent, mashup or combine the information the government holds to make it useful.  To provide you with some raw materials we will be posting some links to information sources here.

To give you idea of what is possible, we have been having a look at the idea of crime maps.

Top tip: click on the picture above to see a presentation on crime maps

These crime map mock ups don't just show you the statistical information, but allows you to do something about it - empowering people to get involved. This is the kind of thing we are looking for - ideas that help make that leap from static informatino to action

To make things interesting, there will be a competitive element. We will take the best ideas from the community commenting on the website and put them to a judging panel selected by the Taskforce. Highly technical and highly un-technical entries are welcome - the strongest ideas will win. Depending upon how the entries develop we might create some categories as the competition rolls on.

We are offering up to £20,000 to take your ideas forward with a development team. That may be time with a designer to create a professional mockup that can be pitched to organisations, or some programmer time to create a working prototype. The best idea overall will win a symbolic trophy trawled from our archives.

The competition will close at the end of September, with an announcement of the winners by the end of the second week in October. We might vary precise timings - such as extending the competition - and will make an announcement on the website nearer the time.