This is a slightly modified cross-post from the Data Transparency Coalition’s blog.

Azavea has been a huge supporter of the open data community for years now, and Sarah Cordivano and I are excited to announce we will be exhibiting at the first ever Data Transparency 2013 conference on Sept. 10th in Washington, DC. Quality data is at the forefront of almost every geospatial analysis project and software product we release, and open data makes our work that much easier and more powerful. As the federal government transforms information currently locked in static documents into open data – standardized, structured, and freely available – we are be able to use that data to create new platforms that deliver geography-based insights for citizens, business, and policymakers. As a B Corporation, open data is also important to our company’s civic mission because we believe it contributes to better government and a more engaged citizenry.

We frequently participate in and sponsor open data and civic hacking events like NASA’s Space Apps, the Sunlight Foundation’s TransparencyCamp, and Random Hacks of Kindness. Years ago, we took it upon ourselves to build OpenDataPhilly.org, which is still used by our hometown City of Philadelphia as its official open data catalog, and was part of an “Open Data Race” effort to get more organizations advocating for open data. The underlying OpenDataCatalog open source project has been adopted in cities like San Diego and others.

Key products of ours that we will be showcasing at the Data Transparency conference both use and create open data. OpenTreeMap is our open source crowdsourced tree inventory and public engagement platform for urban forestry, which lets ordinary citizens with smartphones map trees in their city, creating open data that can be analyzed for environmental benefits and help us visualize and understand the importance and value of trees and green infrastructure.

Our Cicero API allows advocacy groups and other organizations to easily match the addresses of their constituents with the districts of elected officials and contact information essential to our democracy. And DistrictBuilder also aims to make the process of political redistricting more open and collaborative. The more levels of government that open key political data and information in machine readable formats, the easier it is for us to improve our Cicero and DistrictBuilder tools for use by advocacy groups and citizens themselves.

We look forward to joining other members of the growing federal open data community at the conference in two weeks. See you there!