Congress Exposed via Sunlight Contest

John Musser, May 18th, 2007
Comments(2)

Earlier this month the Sunlight Foundation announced the winners of their Mashup Congress contest. See our earlier coverage Mashup Congress, Win Money for some background. The judges included Esther Dyson, Craig Newmark, and Jimmy Wales. In the end the contest was a success and as they note “Each entry proved the case for more transparency in Congress and the creativity of American citizens if provided access to data.” Who won?

The winners of the first place $2,000 prize were Skye Bender-deMoll and Greg Michalec who created Unfluence. Built using the Follow the Money API it gets you more insight into the truth of campaign finance via an interactive network map of state level political contribution data.

Citycon: Another good contest entry and first runner-up. Lets you find detailed information about any member of the current 110th US Congress.

Congress Meets Second Life: One we covered earlier that uses the SunlightLabs API to create an info centers on the Second Life Capitol Hill that offers detailed information on members of the U.S. Congress. Our profile link takes you to a YouTube video of the mashup.

2 Responses to “Congress Exposed via Sunlight Contest”

May 25th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

Comment by: Technically speaking … » Blog Archive » Testing the business boundaries of APIs

[...] the terms of the agreement. I’m sure that some in the American Congress are regretting how some of the government data is now being brought together. It’s that much harder to prevent it though when the ‘public interest’ is [...]

December 23rd, 2008 at 4:12 am

Comment by: Apps for America: A Contest to Make Congress Accountable

[...] for America Mashup Contest from the good folks at the Sunlight Foundation. Like last year’s Mashup Congress contest, this is another notable competition from Sunlight, whose nonprofit mission is to help [...]