Can an app make New York City greener? It can if it influences the little decisions that New Yorkers make every day -- things like recycling a bottle instead of throwing it in the trash, or biking to work instead of driving. Together, those billions of little decisions add up to make a huge impact on New York City's environment and infrastructure, and that's why we decided to host the Reinvent Green hackathon.
June 30 through July 1, more than 100 people came together for Reinvent Green, the City of New York's first hackathon with a sustainability mission. Guided by a "wishlist" of apps and five prizes, teams coded day and night, demonstrating their work on Sunday to a panel of judges that included New York Tech Meetup's Jessica Lawrence, Brooklyn Beta Co-Founder Tyler Mincey, and prominent City government officials David Bragdon and Ron Gonen.
We had no idea what folks would come up with, and were blown away by their creativity and skill. See the five winning apps below -- and then go vote for your favorite on Facebook before July 15th.
When government works collaboratively with the tech community, we can achieve incredible things. We are grateful to the talented folks who dedicated their weekend to Reinvent Green -- their partnership and innovation are critical to achieving Mayor Bloomberg's digital roadmap for New York City's future.
Best App for City Crowdsourcing: ReBounty
Sean Auriti, Peter Gerber, Johanna Levy, Lydia White
Best App for Recycling: GreenCan
Sarah Azpeitia, Jason Pearson, Matt Pestritto, Margaret Plaisted
Best App for Transportation: Bike Pooling
Marine Boudeau, Lori Hoffman, Isaac Lewis, George Magiros, Yannell Rodriguez
Best App for Parks and Public Spaces: FreshFixNYC
Yan Krasny, Annie Lee, Pavel Riger, Jonathan Serrano, Dong Ik (D.I) Shin
Judges' Pick: Green, Greener, Greenest!
Anton Granik and Matthew Ruttley
The sixth prize category, Popular Choice, will be decided by the public via the City of New York's Facebook Page with voting will take place until July 15th.