Do you have what it takes to turn Camden's open data into an innovative website or app? Are you passionate about making a difference to our local communities?

If the answer is yes, then join Camden's Open Data Challenge.

We are looking for coders, developers, designers, programmers, data enthusiasts and anyone else who feels they can make a difference in Camden, to dig deep into our open data and uncover new innovations that could improve the everyday lives of our residents.

We have nearly 300 different sets of data available on our open data portal, Open Data Camden – featuring information on everything from parking bays and planning applications to housing stock and road accidents. This data has the potential to change lives and we are asking you to help us unlock its potential.

We’re kicking off the Camden Open Data Challenge with a meet-up on 23 March, hosted by Councillor Theo Blackwell, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance, Technology and Growth and leading advocate of open data in local government. We’ll introduce our open data programme, agree the challenge(s) and discuss how we can work together to tackle them.

We want to build a network of civic coders collaborating with us to get the most out of the wealth of open data we’re releasing.

In true hackathon style, there’ll be pizza and (modest) prizes for the best apps.

To get you started, here are some ideas that we think have potential:

• Schools waiting list – help parents keep track of where their child is on the waiting list for Camden schools
• Council housing data – help prospective council tenants understand how the bidding process for council housing works through data
• My local area – help residents keep up to date with activity such as planning, parking, licencing and streetworks in their neighbourhood.

We are very open to other ideas – and we’ll do our very best to source the data for you if it’s not already on the site. Check out our open data at https://opendata.camden.gov.uk/browse.

This will be the first in a series of Open Data Challenges.