Civic Innovations

It’s been a few weeks since I suggested that by embracing open government data, the State of Delaware (and other states and localities) could encourage the development of nimble software companies and spur entrepreneurship.

Since then, it’s been very gratifying to see lots of other people come to the same conclusion:

• The Open Gov Initiative: Enabling Techies to Solve Government Problems (TechCrunch)
• Accountability, Better Services, and Economic Opportunity (Sunlight Foundation)
• Gov 2.0: The Next Internet Boom (Business Week)

I particularly like this statement from Jake Brewer of the Sunlight Foundation:

Perhaps the greatest by-product of creating a more transparent, accountable government through freely available open government data, is that in so doing, we will simultaneously create one of the most vast opportunities for new enterprise in recent history.

I couldn’t have said it any better myself…