Building an Innovative App Using Government Data with Jonathan Reichental

[smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/mobileappchat/129_hack_palo_alto.mp3″ ]

Sponsors

Go to Affordable Dev for your one-stop shop for all your app development needs and tell them Steve sent you. For a limited time, you can save 20% off your next app.

Are you developing a mobile app? Get anything from icons and buttons to your entire mobile app designed at 99designs! You can start your next graphic design project for as low as $199. Visit 99designs.com/Chat and get a $99 Power Pack of services for free.

Subscribe to the Show

Subscribe via iTunes
Subscribe via Stitcher
Subscribe via RSS

About the Episode

How do you innovate in a restrictive governmental environment? Well today’s guest is the city of Palo Alto’s Chief Information Officer and he shares some ways you can use government data to build an innovative app. Also, listen to his billion dollar app idea in the half baked idea segment.

Jonathan Reichental is the Chief Information Officer of the City of Palo Alto.

Show Notes

For today’s episode, we have the Chief Information Officer of the City of Palo Alto, Jonathan Reichental, to tell us about a one-of-a-kind event ran in their community: the Palo Alto App Challenge. Considered as the American Idol for apps, they aim to engage and make the community aware of technological innovations and encourage them to share their input.

An immigrant born and raised in Ireland, Jonathan started in software development and moved on to become the head of IT technology innovation. When he settled in the US, he started in media and eventually became a Head of Technology and CIO. He had a lot of success in data platform including building mobile apps, and below are the things he shared in addition to this:

• The prizes, the contestant demographics, the app showcase (April 27), the final vote (May 31) and all about the Palo Alto App Challenge,
• The range of ideas and data accessible in their city for innovators and developers to work on to contribute to the community,
• From cycling to urban farming, we get a sneak peek on some of the entries from the challenge, and
• An intelligent discussion on innovative disruption and intersection of government and technology. 

Jonathan also shared to us a great app idea which could solve 30% of traffic congestion problems. You might want to take this on if your aim in life is solving a major 21^st century problem and gaining big bucks along the way.

Show Mentions

Site: Reichental.com

Site: HackPaloAlto.org

Fav app: Cardmunch (iTunes | GooglePlay)