80 FR 23552 - GSA's Digital Innovation and Strategy Hack-A-Thon

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 81 (April 28, 2015)

The purpose of this notice is to announce a software programming and data innovation competition hosted by GSA's Office of Digital Innovation and Strategy that will be held on May 8, 2015. The competition details can be viewed at http://open.gsa.gov/Digital- Innovation-Hackathon/. The goal of this competition is to ask the public and academia to develop smart technology solutions in the form of an application, Application Programming Interface (API), and/or data mashup that has the capability to providing GSA with key insights and recommendations for future enhancements. GSA will challenge software developers and designers to create a solution using sample GSA data.

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 81 (Tuesday, April 28, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 23552-23554]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-09843]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

[Notice-IDMO-2015-01; Docket No. 2015-0002; Sequence 7]


GSA's Digital Innovation and Strategy Hack-A-Thon

AGENCY: General Services Administration (GSA), GSA IT, Office of 
Digital Innovation and Strategy.

ACTION: Notice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The purpose of this notice is to announce a software 
programming and data innovation competition hosted by GSA's Office of 
Digital Innovation and Strategy that will be held on May 8, 2015. The 
competition details can be viewed at http://open.gsa.gov/Digital-Innovation-Hackathon/. The goal of this competition is to ask the 
public and academia to develop smart technology solutions in the form 
of an application, Application Programming Interface (API), and/or data 
mashup that has the capability to providing GSA with key insights and 
recommendations for future enhancements. GSA will challenge software 
developers and designers to create a solution using sample GSA data.

DATES: Registration for the event will close Tuesday, May 5, at 11:59 
p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). The competition will be open on 
Friday, May 8, 2015 from 9:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard 
Time (EST).

ADDRESSES: Registration: Registration for this event will be 
accomplished online at the following link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/us-general-services-administration-gsa-hack-a-thon-tickets-15637828165. The event space is limited to the first 120 people; once 
registration is complete, participants will receive a confirmation 
email.
    Event Location: 1800 F Street NW., Washington, DC 20405, Conference 
Center. A government-issued ID shall be required to gain access into 
the building. All participants must enter through the main entrance 
located on 18th Street.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Cindy A. Smith at 
[email protected] or 816-823-5291.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Purpose: In this competition, the public is asked to develop a 
technology-driven solution using GSA data that allows an agency to 
identify opportunities for improvements and transparency. As such, GSA 
challenges the public to create a solution using GSA data that could be 
replicated across government to every agency, using their own data. 
Sample data sets with GSA data will be provided.
    Details of Challenge: Design and create a digital interactive 
solution in the form of an application, Application Programming 
Interface (API), and/or data mashup that utilizes federal data 
collected by GSA. The technology solution should be innovative! GSA 
does not want an analysis tool that tells what is already known. This 
should be a forward-thinking solution that enhances transparency.
    The solution should be a data-driven solution to provide meaningful 
insights that can help drive smarter decisions by federal employees. 
The ultimate goal is to help federal agencies use data to its fullest, 
share data with all agencies, and become transparent to the American 
Public.
    The solution should accomplish two tasks:
    1. Visually display or transmit data in a way that will enhance the 
way GSA works; and
    2. Through analysis of the data identify relationships if they 
exist, and provide valuable insights that could be gained through 
improved data collection efforts.
    GSA will assign teams randomly based on the number of participants 
on the day of the event. No pre-determined team arrangements will be 
permitted. Modification to team make-up may occur based on team skill 
make-up at the direction of the competition host.

[[Page 23553]]

    Data: Participants will be provided current GSA public data sets to 
use in designing their solution on the day of the event. Prior to the 
event, the GitHub page, open.gsa.gov/Digital-Innovation-Hackathon/, 
will be updated with project details and criteria.
    Hackathon projects may include the following:
     IAE CO Dashboard--A Dashboard that pulls together Contract 
Report Data, with Vendor information along with Contract Performance 
information in one location.
     Travel Tool--Improvements/Enhancements to the existing 
Tool.
     Public Data Listing Formatting on GitHub--A new way to 
view all of GSA's data assets.
     Socio-Economic Advisor--Access to specific Vendor data 
(Products, Services, etc.).
     Energy Use/Cost by Building/Effect on TSS--Identify 
drivers and relationships.
    Eligibility for Challenge: Eligibility to participate in the GSA 
Digital Innovation and Strategy competition and win a prize is limited 
to entities/individuals:
    1. That have registered to participate in the competition and 
complied with the rules of the competition as explained in this 
posting; and
    2. That have been incorporated in and maintains a primary place of 
business in the United States, and in the case of an individual, 
whether participating singly or in a group, the participant must be a 
citizen or permanent resident of the United States.
    Participants may not be a federal entity or federal employee acting 
within the scope of employment. However, an individual or entity shall 
not be deemed ineligible because the individual or entity used federal 
facilities or consulted with federal employees during a competition if 
the facilities and employees are made available to all individuals and 
entities participating in the competition on an equitable basis.
    Participants agree to assume any and all risks and waive claims 
against the Federal Government and its related entities, except in the 
case of willful misconduct, for any injury, death, damage, or loss of 
property, revenue, or profits, whether direct, indirect, or 
consequential, arising from participation in this competition, whether 
the injury, death, damage, or loss arose through negligence or 
otherwise. Participants also agree to obtain liability insurance or 
demonstrate financial responsibility, to cover a third party for death, 
bodily injury, property damage, or loss resulting from an activity 
carried out in connection with participation in this competition.
    Participants are hereby advised that diligent care must be taken to 
avoid the appearance of government endorsement of competition 
participation and submission. Moreover, as is customary when doing 
business with the Federal Government, participants may not refer to 
GSA's use of your submission (be it product or service) in any 
commercial advertising or similar promotions in a manner that states or 
implies that the product or service being used is endorsed or preferred 
by GSA or any other element of the Federal Government, or that the 
Federal Government considers it to be superior to other products or 
services. The intent of this policy is to prevent the appearance of 
Federal Government bias toward any one product or service. Participants 
agree that GSA's trademarks, logos, service marks, trade names, or the 
fact that GSA awarded a prize to a Participant, shall not be used by 
the Participant to imply direct GSA endorsement of Participant or 
Participant's submission. Both Participants and GSA may list the other 
party's name in a publicly available customer or other list so long as 
the name is not displayed in a more prominent fashion than any other 
third-party name.
    Prizes: GSA may award up to three team prizes $1,000 to each member 
of a winning team. GSA is not required to award all prizes if the 
judges determine that a smaller number of entries meet the scope and 
requirements laid out for this competition, or if the Agency plans to 
only use code from a smaller number of entries. Funding for this GSA 
Digital Innovation and Strategy competition award will come from GSA. 
Prizes will be awarded to the winner(s) of the competition via 
Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), within 60 days of announcement of the 
winner(s).
    Requirements: The final solution should be open source code and 
placed on GSA's GitHub site to be specified to participants the day of 
the event. ``Open source'' refers to a program in which the source code 
is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its 
original design free of charge. In order to be Open Source Initiative 
Certified, the solution must meet the following ten criteria:
    1. The author or holder of the license of the source code cannot 
collect royalties on the distribution of the program;
    2. The distributed program must make the source code accessible to 
the user;
    3. The author must allow modifications and derivations of the work 
under the program's original name;
    4. No person, group, or field of endeavor can be denied access to 
the program;
    5. The rights attached to the program must not depend on the 
program being part of a particular software distribution;
    6. The licensed software cannot place restrictions on other 
software that is distributed with it;
    7. The solution must be an online, interactive solution that meets 
the goals and objectives provided in this document;
    8. The solution must include documentation of all data sources 
used;
    9. The solution must include a description of how the solution can 
be updated with additional data from other agencies; and
    10. The solver must provide recommendations to enhance Government 
insights through improvements in data collection.
    The winner(s) of the competition will, in consideration of the 
prize(s) to be awarded, grant to GSA a perpetual, non-exclusive, 
royalty-free license to use any and all intellectual property to the 
winning entry for any governmental purpose, including the right to 
permit such use by any other agency or agencies of the Federal 
Government. All other rights of the winning entrant will be retained by 
the winner of the competition.
    Scope: Any federal data and information that is publicly available 
is included in the scope of this challenge. Summary-level sample data 
will be provided.
    Judges: There will be three Judges, each with expertise in 
Government-Wide Policy, Travel, Information Technology, and/or 
Acquisition. Judges will award a score to each submission. The 
winner(s) of the competition will be decided based on the highest 
average overall score. Judges will only participate in judging 
submissions for which they do not have any conflicts of interest.
    Judging Criteria: A panel of judges will assess each solution based 
on technical competence and capabilities, use of GSA data to provide 
effective outcomes, creativity/innovation, and valuable information and 
insights.
    Submissions will be judged based on the following Metrics:

Criteria Technical Competence and Capabilities/Weight 50%

    Description--The solution addresses the primary goals of the Hack-
a-thon. It is a finished product that can provide insightful analysis 
and show GSA how

[[Page 23554]]

to enhance/improve existing functions, share data across GSA and more 
efficiently utilize existing applications.

Use of Data To Provide Effective Outcomes/Weight 20%

    Description--The solution displays in a way that is easy to 
understand, visually appealing, and will help drive understanding of 
current trends as well as recommendations.

Creativity/Innovation/Weight 10%

    Description--The solution exceeds any internal capability that GSA 
has for analysis of data through its incorporation of creative design 
elements and innovative capabilities.

Valuable Information and Insights Regarding Data/Weight 20%

    Description--The solver provides recommendations for additional 
data elements to be collected by the government. The solver identifies 
gaps in the data and utilizes external data sources and research to aid 
the Government in setting future data collection policies.

Challenge Goal and Objectives

    Goal: Design and build an application, API, and/or data mashup 
while using GSA data that solves one of five GSA business problems 
provided at the Hack-a-thon.
    Objectives:

--Utilize GSA data to create an application, API, and/or data mashup.
--Provide GSA a better understanding of use and needs of current and 
future data assets.
--Post all open source solutions on GitHub for future use by the 
government developer community and GSA.

    Registration: Registration for this event will be accomplished 
online at the following link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/us-general-services-administration-gsa-hack-a-thon-tickets-15637828165. It shall 
remain open until Tuesday, May 5, 2015, at 11:59 p.m., Eastern Standard 
Time (EST). The event space is limited to the first 120 people; once 
registration is complete you shall receive a confirmation email.
    All participants are required to check in with Security upon 
arriving at the GSA Central Office Building, 1800 F Street NW., 
Washington, DC 20405. A government-issued ID is required to gain access 
into the building. All participants must enter through the main 
entrance located on 18th Street.
    Proceed through Security and follow the posted signs to the 
Conference Center, Rooms 1459-1461.
    Check in at the Registration table on Friday, May 8, 2015, 
beginning at 9:00 a.m., Eastern Standard Time (EST). All participants 
must stop here to sign the required forms shown below:
     Gratuitous Service Agreement.

    Dated: April 22, 2015.
Kris Rowley,
Director, Enterprise Information & Data Mgmt Ofc.
[FR Doc. 2015-09843 Filed 4-27-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6820-34-P