As we’ve previously written, there are many advantages for governments if they open up their data, ranging from visualizations and better decision-making to citizen engagement and broader awareness. A challenge, however, lies in the process of opening it up — and not just technically. As has been pointed out, a difficult question is, “Where to start?” And it’s a question that grows more difficult as your consider the number of known datasets a government agency may have, or even, which ones it may not even know about.

This is why it was great to see the folks OpenDataPhilly turn to the crowd for help. They have launched an “OpenDataRace” to help unearth Philly-related data sets that are not yet available for public consumption:

OpenDataRace is a contest to uncover Philadelphia-related data sets that are not yet available to the public. Non-profit organizations across the city have nominated data that would help them accomplish their missions and improve our region. Vote now for the data set that you think should be open and available. The top three data sets will earn cash prizes for their nominators and the assistance of the OpenDataPhilly team in opening the data for public use.

What’s interesting about this approach is that it forces the community to get specific. By asking non-profits to nominate data sets, you not only get them bought into the idea of open data, but have them think specifically about what data they’d like. This serves as a kind of straw poll then for government of people’s interests. Plus, as OpenDataPhilly is a “not a government project”, but indeed has some support from inside government, there’s both pressure on and buy-in from the city to actually get the data out there. They’ve even scheduled a data-dependent hackathon after the race to boot.

It’s a novel concept, and we’re excited to see how this open data experiment plays out.

Nominations are open now, and the voting starts October 3. Learn more at OpenDataPhilly.org/contest.

h/t: Mark Headd