In keeping with Zillow’s startup roots, a number of Zillowites are putting on their thinking caps and joining the Seattle Startup Weekend: GOV event this weekend.
The three-day event, which starts at 7 p.m. tonight, rounds up the smartest minds of Seattle and challenges them to crunch data sets, hack APIs and think about ways to make data more accessible to the public and useable within consumer-friendly Web and mobile applications. Some of the open data sets available can be viewed here:
Seattle: http://data.seattle.gov
King County: http://datakc.org
State of Washington: http://data.wa.gov
Presented by the City of Seattle, King County, and Washington state, the think tank event is held at the Seattle City Hall. It will close Sunday evening with a presentation session showcasing all the ideas generated over the weekend.
If you are participating, keep your eye out for the Zillow crew, including Director of Zillow Mortgage Marketplace Erin Lantz, and Senior Mobile Program Manager Jay Al Hashal. If you can’t make it this weekend, mark your calendars for the next Seattle Startup Weekend event, held on May 18, where both Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries and Jay Al Hashal will be serving as mentors.