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  •   almost 13 years ago

Almost a week into the competition! What has been your experience.

I thought I would kick of the debate and get some engagement going in this forum,  it seems very bare and not very active for such a great competition.  
Lets hope that over the next few weeks, others will take up the challenge and develop some apps that will help change the world and increase awareness of the Millennium Development Goals.

How was your first week,
Have you started your app project
Have you looked at all the data or only specific data sets.  
What kind of app are you building! 
Have you had an experience with the World Bank before

 
@PatrickLismore

  • 6 comments

  •   •   almost 13 years ago

    For one, I did scope my project. It'll focus on climate change and climate justice. Further more, I'll concentrate on one specific country.
    I did a first inventory of the data I would use and I'm looking around to complete the dataset. On the technology front, I also did identify few potential approaches. As an IT architect, I know those technical choices are key because there will be a time when it'll simply be too late. I want it to be simple, accurate but I also want some wow factor.
    I'll try to have a first prototype by the end of the month.
    JB

  •   •   almost 13 years ago

    Glad to see a push to get this forum a little more active.
    I have been working on a project since the World Bank announced that it was opening up its data, so this isn't my first week of work by a long stretch. I specialize in large scale, multi-dimensional data sets, like the World Bank's and have been designing an application that will let people explore the entirety of the data set. My goal is to make it much easier to make comparisons across any 6 of the indicators you want at a time, when data is available, between any different countries. I wrote a custom visualization tool for a project on the NYSE that handles visualizing this many data points at once. I am wrapping up the design phase of the project and will be starting coding in the next week or so. 
    There are a few challenges I have come across in developing an app for the whole data set. Most notably the random nature of what countries have data available across the indicators and what years it is available. So if you're looking to also tackle the data set as a whole keep in mind that you are going to need to handle making users aware of that some way. I ended up designing a chart that handles it based on what is selected as well as sorting the topics that a user can select based on where the data is available for the countries they have selected, or vice versa. 
    I'm doing my project in Processing, possibly converting it to ProcessingJS later to make it a bit more web friendly. I am hoping to develop the application in a way that even after I submit it to the competition I can add more data from other sources and new functionality as it is needed. We'll see how it goes, I'd like to add on elements that don't just highlight the problems a country is having, but can overlay solutions to these problems, or projects going on that need funding that could help an area. 
    I will probably end up submitting a project that handles showing the data and letting people make comparisons, then see if I can get access to more data and work with other groups to highlight projects that need more attention. 
     
    James

  •   •   almost 13 years ago

    Agreed, with the passionate group of individuals I'm sure this competition is attracting, I'd love to see some more discussion and thought-sharing in the forum!  
    I've struggled a bit to get the ball rolling with my app, primarily because of my minimal knowledge of World Bank data and, honestly, the field of development as a whole.  A user experience designer myself, I've been lucky enough to have the help of insight from friends that work in development and related industries, but I still haven't nailed down the scope of my project.  With such a vast amount of data and so many social issues that can be explored it's challenging to find a focus, but it's also crucial with only a couple months remaining in the competition.
    In addition to how people are faring and what they're up to, I'm curious how many are working as individuals vs. small teams vs. large teams or organizations?
    Really looking forward to seeing the apps developed for this great cause!
    -Stephen@sventh 

  •   •   almost 13 years ago

    We are a small Team well two People, currently we are establishing the focus of our application, which is not easy. This whole thing has started a fundamental discussion. After we get through this discussion, work form the past and present will contribute to the application.

  •   •   almost 13 years ago

    I am working on the application since the announcement. The biggest problem is that lack of documentation in the dataset, but I am invest time as much as possible for this application because I work and study so sometimes I can not work on the application on a full time basis...

  •   •   almost 13 years ago

    Fabio, thanks for raising the point about the documentation. The World Development Indicators publication contains extensive documentation on many of the most important indicators in the database. This documentation covers indicator definitions, sources of data, and any limitations in using the data. This is available on the World Bank's Open Data site at http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators/wdi-2010. We also provide a data help desk and we would be happy to answer any questions - we frequently do. Contact our help desk by email (data@worldbank.org) or by calling us here in Washington, D.C. at 1-800-590-1906. Or post your questions on this discussion.
    Cheers and good luck in the competition,
    Sup Lee, World Bank Development Data Group

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