More Muscle for Data.gov

By Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Microsoft Federal

When Data.gov launched last year, it was an incredible milestone for open government, citizen engagement and transparency. The site instantly became the central location for the democratization of public information, enabling researchers and developers to interact with data and build applications that benefit citizens across the country. Over the past year Data.gov has evolved to include geospatial capabilities and additional datasets, and a new cloud project spearheaded by the GSA will make the site even more valuable for citizens.

A team of Microsoft partners recently announced that they are working with the GSA on a cloud-based dataset hosting solution designed to improve constituents' ability to access and consume important Federal data. The Smartronix team (Smartronix, Synteractive, KPMG and TMP Government) is the same team that built Recovery.gov 2.0, and Microsoft's role will be to offer our Codename Dallas solution to help users manage and utilize open datasets within the Windows Azure platform.

Open government starts with making data available, but in order to really drive innovation and engagement, citizens need tools that help them contextualize that data. It's only truly open if it's easy to understand, easy to visualize and easy to work with. This virtual dataset hosting solution will help make the process of discovering, acquiring and managing data far simpler, both for agencies and citizen developers. For more information on the project, see press releases from Smartronix as well as Microsoft's 2010 Federal Partner of the Year, Synteractive.