Free Money
By / On / In Appsterdam
Open data is crude oil to an App Maker—money just sitting on the ground waiting for someone to suck it up. The Netherlands is the Saudi Arabia of the information age. Not only are there billions of barrels of data to be exploited, the government will pay you to do so.
The Netherlands has a truly open government, which means that you, as an App Maker, have the keys to the city, or, if you prefer, the API to the Matrix. This being home to the world’s most advanced infrastructure for App Makers, there are several organizations here to help you take advantage of that.
Hack de Overheid (Hack the Government) for example is working on documenting the Matrix in English and Dutch. That way, when you walk through town, you will see not problems, but opportunities to make a living by making things better.
The latest dataset to be opened for the plunder is that of the province of Noord-Holland, which is offering up €13.000,- in bounties via the Apps for Noord-Holland contest.
They’re also hosting an event this summer that sounds like a legend in the making. Imagine this: you’re transported by boat to an island fortress where you and your fellow App Makers will spend the day coding and collaborating, your every need met by your generous and mysterious host.
Doesn’t the whole experience just seem so cinematic? It’s hard not to imagine some oddball super-villain welcoming us to the island while stroking a cat. There’s no way I’m going to miss that, and it gets better.
This is just the latest in a series of contests where App Makers can win real money just for working on cool projects. Some places have poker circuits. Appsterdam has hackathons. There’s your angel funding right there, amirite?
More proof that Appsterdam is the best place in the world to be an App Maker.