This spring, NCoC launched the first-ever Civic Data Challenge to bring new eyes, new minds, new findings, and new skill sets to the field of civic health. The Challenge is part of our larger effort, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, to better understand the connections between community attachment, civic engagement and how our communities thrive.

Will you join us?

As a participant, you will turn the raw data of "civic health" into beautiful, useful applications and visualizations﹘tools to help us understand how our communities thrive. We are providing civic health data, as well as other data on the important topics of health, safety, education, and the economy. We are calling upon new audiences, including designers, data scientists, researchers, and app developers, to find connections and create something amazing to showcase what you find. The Challenge closes July 29th, so it's time to get started!

You'll also have the chance to compete for cash and other amazing prizes including the opportunity to host your own data competition on the Kaggle platform, to present your winning insights at Data Week in September, and to feature your submissions through the GOOD platform. The Salesforce.com Foundation has signed on as a top-line sponsor, contributing $25,000 in cash prizes! Knight Foundation, presenting partner of the Challenge, has also just announced another $25,000 in cash prizes for the winners!

And, as a participant, you will have the chance to get your ideas in front of great minds including judges:

We have been amazed by the response to the Challenge. We've had the opportunity to talk about the importance of civic data in new venues like Data 2.0 Summit, TechWeek, and more.

Partners, judges and new friends have been spreading the word far and wide:

And our judges have shared what they hope to see come from the Challenge:

"Quite honestly the aspect of the Civic Data Challenge I'm most excited about is the bullet point 'Connect with others'. If even just two people from different sides of the spectrum end up planning to work together after the event, I'd call it a huge success."-Jake Porway, Executive Director, DataKind

"I would like to see real visual stories that move folks from feeling that building communities is more than just nice, but absolutely necessary to our overall health and well-being."-Darell Hammond, CEO, KaBOOM!

Learn more about our judges and check out the full interviews.

Winners will be announced at the 67th Annual National Conference on Citizenship on September 14 in Philadelphia. Make sure to save your spot now and be there for the announcement!

The Challenge closes on July 29, so join the Challenge now and get started. We can't wait to see what you discover.