About OpenOttawa.org

What is OpenOttawa.org?
The idea behind OpenOttawa.org is that there’s lots of ways for people to to help out in there community doing things like Spring Cleaning the Capital, or planting trees, but there’s no easy way for the code monkeys to give back. The goal of OpenOttawa.org is to fill this void by providing web applications and online services to the betterment of the citizens of Ottawa. Much like the inspiration for OpenOttawa.org, the UK’s mySociety.org, OpenOttawa.org has two missions. The first is to be a volunteer project which builds websites that gives people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. The second is to teach the public and voluntary sectors, through demonstration, how to most efficiently use the internet to improve lives.

How do I get in contact with you in person?
Email chris [at] openottawa.org.

What exactly are you doing?
Right now we’re trying to get this project off the ground, while building websites such as FixItOttawa (coming soon) and other sites that promote community engagement and interaction, while improving the value of municipal services.

Can you give us any examples of the types of project you’re working on?
We don’t have any live projects at the moment, but are working hard to get a release of FixItOttawa out the door. FixItOttawa will allow people to identify streetlights that are out, grafitti, potholes, abandoned cars, illegal dumping and various other issues with automated notifications to both Councillors and the City. In doing so, duplicate requests are reduced and the progress of these issues are tracked for all to see. FixIt Ottawa is very much based on mySocety’s FixMyStreet.com and should be ready sometime later this summer.

Who are you?
Currently, the team is made up by the project’s founder, Chris Taggart, an Ottawa web developer. I’m looking for other volunteers that would like to get involved to help kick-start the project. Please get in touch, or come find me at an upcoming democamp or barcamp.

Can I help?
Yes! We are looking for help of all kinds. Anything from marketing, to fundraising, to graphic design, to programming, human computer interface work, anything. If you’re interested, please check out the volunteer tasks page, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed(s) or twitterstream (openottawaorg).

Are you a registered charity?
No, we are not. We may consider this down the road.

Where did the idea come from?
OpenOttawa came partly from seeing all of the great work happening in the local Democamp and Barcamp scenes and noticing that much of it was aimed towards eventual commercialization and came from primarily the private sector. One of the drivers for the project is creating an umbrella organization for a number of projects with the goal of improving public access to public information.

So you’re an incubator?
Not really, although having more people onboard would be fantatsic. OpenOttawa.org’s goal is to build sites that are cheap and scalable, provide really tangible outputs, and high usability. If you have an idea and you think we might be able to help, please get in touch.

Are the projects open source?
Nearly all of our code is open source, and will be in the future, unless some compelling situation arises forcing a project not to be. I’ll be working to setup a Subversion repository as soon as possible to get some our code out there for people to check-out and submit patches and enchancements.

Do end users pay for services?
No. There would have to be a very unusual and compelling basis for charging to become part of a project’s structure. Sometimes partners who want to syndicate our sites will be asked to contribute.

Do you have a political agenda?
No, we are not party political, and this project is neither left or right-wing. It is about building useful digital tools for the citizens of Ottawa and anyone who wants to use them.

How can I be kept up to date with the projects?
Follow openottawaorg on Twitter, or subscribe to our news or developer blogs via RSS.

How can I contact you?
See our contact page.