Late last week JC Decaux and the City of Paris launched a french and english site to coincide with the announcement that the two would be opening up key Vélib’ data, which includes statistics on stations (ie location) as well as real-time data. Now comes the announcement that the two will be teaming up with SNCF and RATP to launch a big open data challenge called Moov’In the City whereby participants will have two months to create web services, applications, and/or datavisualizations that help facilitate people’s daily commutes and other trips around the Paris metro area.

The challenge will actually last two months and will kick-off at 17h on May 21st at the competition’s launch event. At the event, the organizers will reveal all of the data at the participants’ disposal and the attendees will be able to share initial ideas and start to form teams. Access to Vélib’s API and the City of Paris’ API, Paris’ open data site http://opendata.paris.fr, as well as, presumably, SNCF’s and RATP’s APIs and data, will serve as the foundation. In the weeks following the first event, participating teams will have the possibility to join the city’s ‘Moov’In the City’ incubator where they will receive technical, marketing and design coaching from experts at BeMyApp and other event partners. At the mid-point, there will be a check-in meeting during Futur en Seine where the teams will be able to get expert advice and do a test pitch with a panel of experts. The grande finale will take place in early July and a jury will crown the winners across a few categories, awarding at least 25,000 euros in prizes.

If you want to participate, you can register for the launch event and conference on May 21st here.

Moov’In the City is actually an important part of a broader agenda of events in 2013 focusing on data and its usage, which also includes the multi-activity information, digital and design expo Expo’viz by La Fonderie as well as other hackathons, conferences, etc.