Day 30 of #productidea — CodeForSpain
This is part of my #productidea 30 day challenge on which each day I write about a new product idea.
Many of you have already read about my last idea, which is CodeForSpain. I shared it yesterday on Spanish and I’m glad it has received such a great reception.
Last Sunday we needed the Spanish zip code coordinates at work. I reviewed several sources but none had 100% valid data. I asked on Twitter and I got nothing. The funny thing is that the official source, Correos (Spanish agency), sell this data for €831.80 instead of being free and with open access. At the end, I got the coordinates from a map of Correos website. Probably every day several developers seek the coordinates of these zip codes and follow the same process.
For years I have followed the activity of CodeForAmerica, a nonprofit initiative which seeks to improve digital interactions between governments (country, state, local) and its citizens. They have done many projects, from aggregating public data to make municipalities aware that they should open data or give workshops to public officials so they prioritize their digital services.
I’ve been wanting for years to follow the steps of CodeForAmerica. And that’s want we are going to do. The idea is to aggregate all the work that many individuals and organizations have been doing with the Spanish public data and in the future help our local governments to improve their services by offering our advice or training.
CodeForSpain is going to be my next 30 day challenge. And hopefully, it will continue to be my challenge for many years to come.
