Five Ways Governments Can Encourage Civic Startups

2012 is shaping up to be the “Year of the Civic Startup.” With the growth of the open government movement and more and more governments embracing open data, we see an increasing number of useful civic applications being developed. Every weekend hackathon spawns multiple projects that could potentially live on as a successful venture or company.

Some hackathons are specifically geared toward producing viable companies – this is exactly the approach that was taken at last November’s “Education Hack Day” in Baltimore. At that event, the idea was to set up winners with as much expert advice and opportunity as possible to launch a business around their weekend project to help teachers.

Generally speaking, a “civic startup” is a startup company with a focus on civic improvement or social good. They look and act just like other kinds of startups, but their aims are somewhat loftier. ElectNext and SeeClickFix are a good example of a civic startups – their aim is to become profitable and viable (just like other startups), but if these ventures are successful they will impact people far beyond their direct customer/user base.