Redwerk partners with DotGov, Inc. to build a revolutionary Gov 2.0 solution connecting citizens with their local governments and city information through a mobile app
Client
DotGov, Inc. is a Gov 2.0 start-up company on a mission to create tools and deliver applications that change the way citizens interact with their local governments and cities.
Industry
The Software Project Challenge
Redwerk`s software engineers were contracted to design the solution`s initial architecture and then develop it from the ground up. The backend had to be lightning fast and robust enough to be able to aggregate data from various sources like civic, licensing and permit services, local events and attractions, public works departments, schools, transportation services, and local publications websites, while keeping all of this information as up-to-date and streamlined as possible in one intuitive and customizable mobile application.
Our Development Solution
Redwerk`s development team built the system`s backend to crawl multiple city and county councils, police and other authority websites and present the aggregated data visually through the mobile application called YouTown, now available on iTunes. YouTown app users are able to access up to the minute updates from their local governments because our team reduced the feed update latency to one minute. Updates and information include city services, job postings, bids & proposals solicitations, licensing and fees, maps of local points of interest, events and meetings calendar and recent news.
The data is stored in CouchDB, a document-based database. Redwerk developers implemented a thin mobile client that communicates with the server using the REST API, which has a design that allows operating data items like resources. The majority of the processing is done on the server-side, eliminating frequent updates in the code and providing backward compatibility.
Supported data feed formats are RSS, iCalendar and KML/KMZ.
Project Scope
- Scalable architecture design
- Robust external data acquisition
- Web UI development
- Backend development
- Deployments
- Ongoing maintenance
Engagement Model
Managed Development Team
Resources Employed
Team size was dependent on the project development`s phase and ranged from:
2-5 developers
1-3 testers
1 PM
Length of Engagement
February 2010 – current.
Platforms and Technologies Used
- GNU/Debian Linux
- Apache
- Python
- CouchDB
- CouchDB-Lucene
- Django
- iPhone SDK
- Titanium
- Javascript
- jQuery
- Google maps API
Results
The first fully functional betas, for both the web UI used by local governments and the mobile app for end users, was delivered in just 3 months. Ongoing development resulted in new and downright cool functionality. Some 20 U.S. cities and counties are currently adopting YouTown with more on the way.
Interesting Facts
WSFA 12 news channel in Montgomery, Alabama featured a report on YouTown`s functionality and convenience in April 2011. The news channel`s website runs on another one of Redwerk`s customer`s (Worldnow) system. Worldnow has been partnering with Redwerk to develop their products since 2010.
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