Open finance data hackdays

At past Swiss Open Data Camps we have already had several applications and visualizations around the theme of “money”, among them:

• Berne Budget Visualisation at the first Bern hackday about a year ago
• Mobile app and visualizations of hospital costs and investments
• Healthcare premiums maps what you pay for insurance in each canton
• Where did my taxes go? does what it says on the box for Zürich taxpayers
• SwissMap visualizes inter-cantonal income and unemployment levels

At this week’s make.opendata.ch hackdays we will focus on this theme of finance, procurement, budgets and material worth in the widest sense. I think there are some huge topics we could tackle, from personal finance and consumer spending, to charities and international econometrics. Our community has already started several discussions on the ideas forum, and new project ideas are appearing in the wiki – take a look for instance at the neat pitch for TaxFreedom.

If you have ideas to implement, data to share, or designer/programmer muscles to flex, please join us in Bern, Sierre, or virtually (#makeopendata on Twitter and IRC/Freenode) this weekend and contribute to digital transparency! Sign-ups here: http://make.opendata.ch

On Thursday evening before the hackdays we will have a General Meeting of the Opendata.ch society (which you are welcome to join if not yet a member) as well as a podium discussion on the subject of Open Financial Data. During the assembly I plan to present a few remarks about where I think the society is going, in order to humbly solicit the vote of our members for fully fledged entry on the board. Until now I have been working closely with the team, attending all meetings, keeping the community buzzing, and investing lots of weekend and evening time, however without “official” status.

It’s time to move ahead, either becoming more seriously involved in the organization which is moving quickly beyond it’s grassroots beginnings, or to stay on board as a regular member. Of course, it’s not an option for me to stop being involved in what I consider one of the most exciting recent developments in my adoptive country’s politics! I’m looking forward to see if the association will be happy to continue having a hacker like me as an official representative.

Update: I’ve been voted in to serve on the board for two years!