On Thursday, I attended the North Carolina Datapalooza at the NC Museum of Natural Science.

This event represented the final stage of the Regional Open Data efforts in Wake county, and there were three companies, who presented their Open Data results, and the types of applications which they were able to develop.

At the end of the day, we heard from leaders from Red Hat, Socrata, along with Raleigh Council member Mary Ann Baldwin, and also Chris Gergen and Zach Ambrose.

Thanks to all of the judges and volunteers, and the day was proof that open data can fuel economic growth, innovation, and bring real value and productivity, and even cost savings to the Towns and governments.

SmartParking, Betaversity, and Waterbeat, were the finalists and the winning company, was Smart Phone Parking App, a new company, now working on offering an application which can provide parking locations, parking rates, driving directions, and walking directions to both the parking spaces and destinations.

The Smart Phone App, estimated annual revenues of $10 million per year, and will offer their service as a Software Service Subscription to market users.

Waterbeat, was an app, focused on water conservation and providing real time data on water consumption and Betaversity was focused on providing for better utilization of resources at universities, along with providing better visibility of resources, to student entrepreneurs.

A wonderful event and I encourage the Town of Morrisville to participate in the next regional initiative and have our own Open Data Initiative.