We challenged people to create innovative tools, applications, and mash-ups using the data available through the World Bank’s Open Data Initiative.

The World Bank launched its Open Data Initiative in April, 2010. This initiative made an array of data sets, including the World Development Indicators, Africa Development Indicators, and Millennium Development Goal Indicators – free for all.

The Apps for Development Competition aims to bring together the best ideas from both the software developer and the development practitioner communities to create innovative apps using World Bank data.

The Competition challenges participants to develop software applications related to one or more of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Submissions may be any kind of software application, be it for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, console, SMS, or any software platform broadly available to the public. The only other requirement is that the proposed application use one or more datasets from the World Bank Data Catalog available at data.worldbank.org.

Applications submitted to the Competition should address at least one of the following objectives:

Raise awareness of at least one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), or Contribute to progress toward meeting one of the MDGs by 2015.

Applications which best satisfy the competition criteria will receive cash prizes and the opportunity to have their apps featured on the World Bank Open Data website. Competition participants are encouraged to also use other relevant indicators and datasets, and to be creative in exploring approaches for realizing the goals.

About the Millennium Development Goals

The MDGs represent a collective ambition for our world. Simply put, the MDGs express a vision of a world in which extreme poverty and hunger have been eliminated, and the economic and human welfare of poor people worldwide has been tangibly improved. The MDGs articulate specific targets to be reached by 2015 related to poverty and hunger, universal education, child health and other crucial dimensions.

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