May 21
2011
The Reality of Implementing Green Buildings in Cities Webinar is the First in a Series of Educational Webinars Hosted by BasicGov
In this complimentary webinar, attendees will learn from green building experts, Chris Cheatham and Robert Kobet, about how to establish an effective approach to planning and implementing green buildings in your municipality. Speakers will discuss the International Green Construction Code, LEED-based regulations as well as best practices for implementing a green building code.
Webinar Title: The reality of implementing green buildings programs in your city
Webinar Date: Wednesday, February 23, 2011, 11 am PST / 2 pm EST (1 hour)
This green buildings webinar will highlight these areas:
- Green building standards – How LEED and the International Green Construction Code (IGCC) relate.
- What other local governments are doing with green buildings and what’s the right approach for your city
- Best practices for implementation to ensure green building code regulations are met
About Webinar Speakers
Chris Cheatham and partner Bob Korbet work with government agencies in planning, management and implementing green building practices effectively, while adhering to regulations and avoiding pitfalls.
- Chris Cheatham: Chris is a Green Building Construction Consultant and Attorney and publisher of the acclaimed Green Building Law Update, a blog www.greenbuildinglawupdate.com/ dedicated to emerging legal and regulatory issues in the green building industry. He has advised multiple municipalities regarding green building regulations and he is a frequent speaker on the topic.
- Bob Kobet: Bob is LEED Faculty, and CEO of The Kobet Collaborative. Bob’s impact on the built environment spans several decades over a wide area of influence. His green building and sustainable community development projects around the world range from small non-profit endeavors to multi-million dollar developments. www.bobkobet.com
May 21
2011
A benchmark stu
dy developed by Socrata (in collaboration with Sunlight Foundation, Personal Democracy Forum, GovLoop, Code for America and David Eaves) highlights the current state of open data initiatives and how to improve open data moving forward. The overall goals for the study were to:
- Benchmark current state of open data distribution
- Understand perspectives of 3 groups: citizens, government and developers
- Offer government insights into citizen and developer views to help move open data adoption forward
Interesting Findings from Open Government Data Report
Both Citizens and Government employees expressed greater than 60% “agree” for these statements:
- Government data is the property of taxpayers and should be free to all citizens
- In the 21st century, if government data is supposed to be public, it should be available online
- Entrepreneurs will create new products and services based on the data
- Broad access to government data will help identify and reduce inefficiencies in government operations
Citizens rated “Public Safety” as one of the highest value data categories (57%) and similarly Developers rated this as the highest value data category (77.4%) and Government rated this as the 3rd highest (81%).
Civic Application Developers are most motivated by “my application(s) can impact people’s daily lives” (43.6%) compared to “it’s cool and challenging” or “I believe in government-as-a-platform”.
You can explore all of the report data online as well as download the full report here http://www.socrata.com/benchmark-study/
Open Data Apps for Cities
So what are some of the applications that are being developed for cities from open data?
Mashable has a list of 5 Open Data Apps that are improving cities.
- TweetMy311 gives anyone with a smartphone and a Twitter account the ability to report a city-related issue (like a pothole in need of repair) in 140 characters or less.
- HeyGov! can be used as an alternative method for non-emergency service request or code enforcement input from your citizens.
- CitySourced provides a free, simple, and intuitive platform that empowers residents to identify civic issues.
- SeeClickFix is focused on community engagement through various channels. Residents can report issues on SeeClickFix, through their favorite sites via a web widget, or on their mobile device.
- MojiPage is sort of like iGoogle for mobile devices, and has created a widget for Open311.
Click here to read more about these 5 apps http://mashable.com/2010/08/13/open311-apps/ .
Any other interesting open data apps for cities and citizens that you know of?
