Federal CIO Vivek Kundra wrote on his blog yesterday that he was on the road to join San Fransisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Fransisco CIO Chris Vein to promote San Fransisco’s Open 311 Application Programming Interface (API) initiative.

He writes, “This is a great approach that ties together efforts in San Francisco, Boston, the District of Columbia, Portland, and Los Angeles to open more services to citizens, and to use data to drive progress in people’s lives. Too often, people grumble that their complaints about government – be it city, county, state, or federal – get swallowed by the bureaucracy.”

CIO Kundra says that Open 311 solves that problem, “placing the role of service evaluator and service dispatcher in citizens’ hands.”  Through Open 311 API’s new web applications, citizens can mash publicly available, real-time data from cities to track the status of repairs of improvements, while allowing them to make new service requests.

“For instance, I can use the same application to report a broken parking meter when I’m home in the District of Columbia or traveling to cities like Portland, Los Angeles, Boston, or San Francisco.” writes CIO Kundra.  “This is the perfect example of how government is simplifying access to citizen services. Open 311 is an innovation that will improve people’s lives and make better use of taxpayer dollars.”

You can watch the whole event, which took place yesterday, here.

Tags: Open 311 API, San Fransisco, Vivek Kundra
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