I always have numerous side project cooking. Occasionally I will submit these projects for potential grant funding. One of my projects which I called Federal Agency Dataset Adoption, was awarded a prototype grant from the Knight Foundation. It was the perfect time to get funding for my open data work, because it coincided with the Summer of APIs work I'm doing with Restlet, and work already in progress defining government open data and APIs with 3Scale.

After reviewing my Federal Agency Dataset Adoption work, I purchased a domain, and quickly got to work on my first two prototype projects. I'm calling the prototype Adopta.Agency, and kicking it off with two projects that reflect my passion for the project.

US Federal Budget
This is a project to make the US federal budget more machine readable, in hopes of building more meaningful tools on top of it. You can already access the historical budget via spreadsheets, but this project is work to make sure everything is available as CSV, JSON, as well as an active API.

VA Data Portal
This project is looking to move forward the conversation around VA data, making it more accessible as CSV and JSON files, and deploying simple APIs when I have the time. The VA needs help to make sure all of its vital assets are machine readable by default.

The first month of the project will be focused on defining the Adopta Blueprint for the project, by tackling projects that my partner in crime Audrey Watters (@audreywatters), and I feel are important, and set the right tone for the movement. Once the blueprint is stable, we ill be inviting other people into the mix, and tackle some new projects.

Adopta.Agency is not a new technology, or a new platform, it is an open blueprint that employs existing services like Github, and tools like CSV to JSON converter, to help move the government open data movement forward just one or two steps. The government is working hard, as we speak, to open up data, but these agencies don't always have the skills and resources to make sure these valuable public assets are ready for use in other websites, applications, analysis and visualizations--this is where we come in!

With Adopta.Agency, we are looking to define a Github enabled, open data and API fueled, human driven network that helps us truly realize the potential of open data and APIs in government -- please join in today.