The first ever Apps4Gaps competition has been a great success. Thanks and congratulations to everyone who took part and made this competition possible. The submissions received were diverse and creative. They offered some very engaging and fascinating usage of the open linked data provided by the CSO for Census 2011.

The Apps4Gaps competition was launched by the Minister of State, Brian Hayes T.D., on 17th October 2013. Entries were received from the whole island of Ireland. The best entries were those which achieved the aim of the competition by developing ideas and creating applications that provide innovative and fresh ways of exploiting the Open Data freely available from the Census 2011 and which could benefit society in such areas as transport, housing, planning, education, communications and health.

The apps were judged in two categories Concept Entry and Working App. The final judging panel chaired by Fiona O’ Riordan consisted of:

Shawn Day,
Lecturer in Digital Humanities,
Graduate School,
College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Science,
University College Cork

Soheila Dehghanzadeh,
PhD student,
Graduate School,
Insight,
NUIM Galway

Kevin Healy,
Statistician,
IT Web Development,
Central Statistics Office Cork

Enzo Lieghio,
Hewlett Packard

Michael Meagher,
Microsoft

Fiona O' Riordan
Data Manager
IT Division
Central Statistics Office, Cork

The panel had the difficult task to assess the entries and pick the winners. The results of the final judges’ deliberations are given below:

Apps4Gaps 2014

Student Category Winners:

Best Working App (Student): €1,500 and also judged overall winner of the Alice Perry medal

 “Some1LikeMe”

Creators: Jack O’Sullivan, Peter Roe

Teacher: E McNiece

School: Kilkenny College, Castlecomer, Kilkenny

Best Concept entry (Student) : €1,000

“The Relocator”

Creators: Conor Mulcahy, Eoin Hayes, Robert Fitzgerald

Teacher: Mr. Power

School: Coláiste Chiarain, High Street, Croom, County Limerick

Open Category Winners:

Best Working App (Open) : €1,500 

“Census Explorer” 

Creators: Gavin McArdle, Thomas Holz, Jennifer Treanor

Dublin

Best Concept entry (Open) : €1,000

“Attack of the Nearly Dead”

Creators: Barry Kennedy, Katie Kennedy

CoderDojo

Limerick

The Apps4Gaps prizes will be presented by the Minister for Research and Innovation, Seán Sherlock T.D, at an award ceremony in the Clock Tower, Dept of Education and Skills, Marlborough St., Dublin at 12:00 on Thursday 16th October 2014 (provisional).

Highly Commended:

“All-Island Census App”

Creators: Justin Gleeson, Eoghan McCarthy, Aoife Dowling

AIRO, NUIM, Galway

Feedback from the judges on the entries

Below are the itemised judging criteria, which could help entrants improve future apps and concept apps:

Data Use

Ensure that the app uses at least one dataset from the Open Data from Census 2011 and it links Open Census 2011 data to other data. Mention the data sources used.

Alignment with Project Goals

The judges are looking for apps which use the Open data from census 2011 in a fresh or innovative way as well as evidence that the group worked as a team to develop and present their app.

Functionality and Implementation

The app must be functional if it’s a working app, or it must be a good workable concept. It needs to be an appropriate use of the data. It must be user-friendly. Its helpful that the platform(s) the working app was tested/runs on is noted in the entry. In relation to the video they should not be too long (5 minutes max) and should demonstrate the audience, benefits, scalability and use case of the app.

Usefulness to students, teachers, schools and citizens of Ireland

The app should benefit society; it should benefit the target audience it was designed for. It should be useful. It should be of use to students, teachers, schools and citizens of Ireland.

Feasibility

Basically if it’s a working app: Does it work? Or if it’s a concept entry: could it work? Could the app be used on different platforms? (mobile, tablet, PC). Is the app viable? Could it be released? Would people use it?

Creativity / Originality

The app should be creative and appealing. It must be original. Preferably the app should answer an interesting question, highlight an issue or provide a solution.

General Feedback from judges:

“The most effective submissions were those that thoughtfully engaged with what the data represented and applied it to social and economic questions posed as differentiated from simply representing the data in a different manner. They took into account the benefits of having mobile or web-based access to data and provided a tool(s) that allowed for the active use of that data. They moved beyond merely browsing data to making particular use of data linkage to create new knowledge or interpretation that could be applied by the user.

Gamification was an aspect that emerged in a number of the applications and is to be applauded. New approaches to numeracy that provide new or real-world contexts for abstract datasets demonstrated the practical value of making data more open and available to civic society. In particular, by giving users the ability to know their immediate world better and support decision making or specific actions reinforced the tremendous value of the CSO Linked Open Data for evidence based social and economic decision making and policy development.”

Thank you

Congratulations on your involvement in the first Apps4Gaps competition. Thank you to all the people who participated, assisted or were otherwise instrumental in making this competition such a great success.

Feedback welcome

Please send your feedback and comments on the Apps4Gaps competition to: apps4gaps@gmail.com