Junar Helps Transform City Of Palo Alto Into Pioneering Open Data Community

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The City of Palo Alto and Junar, the Open Data platform leader for the Data Economy, today announced they are partnering to power one of the most pioneering Open Data community sites in the country. With the cloud-based Junar Open Data Platform, the City of Palo Alto is able to increase public access to high value, machine-readable datasets generated by various service areas and departments within the City. The Open Data site was launched under the leadership of Chief Information Officer, Dr. Jonathan Reichental, as part of the City's efforts to be at the forefront of public sector technology and innovation.

Known as the birthplace of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto is home to CEOs, venture-capital firms, countless start-ups and companies like HP, IDEO, VMware and Palantir, as well as well as one of the most renowned universities and medical centers in the world. In midst of this thriving environment of technology and innovation, it is the vision of the City of Palo Alto to build a leading digital city and the Junar-powered site, accessible at http://data.cityofpaloalto.org/ on August 1, 2012, enables the City to quickly advance open government transparency and achieve its Open Data goals.

The City of Palo Alto Open Data site will provide the opportunity to increase engagement with citizens. This openness will also enable the community to have greater visibility into the workings of their local government and also facilitate community use of the data to build new applications that can benefit everyone.

"We are delighted to work with a local, innovative Silicon Valley start-up," said Dr. Jonathan Reichental, Palo Alto Chief Information Officer. "Rather than just publishing lists of datasets, the cloud-based Junar platform has enhancement and visualization capabilities that make the data useful even before it is downloaded or consumed by a software application."

Through challenges and hackathons, non-City employees will be able to develop applications that enhance cost efficiencies and speed of execution of City services to the community, but do not incur costs to the City.

Over time, the City will make available more advance datasets; however, initial datasets include:

• 2010 census data for Palo Alto
• Pavement condition ratings
• City tree locations
• Park locations
• Bicycle paths and hiking trails
• Creek water level
• Rainfall tide
• Utility data

"The City of Palo Alto joins a group of forward-thinking organizations that are using Open Data as a foundation for more efficient delivery of services, information, and enabling innovation," said Diego May, CEO and co-founder of Junar. "By opening data with the Junar Platform, the City of Palo Alto is exposing and sharing valuable data assets and is also empowering citizens to use and create new applications and services."

James Keene, Palo Alto City Manager adds, "We're excited to bring the value of Open Data to our community. It is a natural complement to our goal of becoming a leading digital city and a connected community. By making valuable datasets easily available to our residents, we're further removing the barriers to a more inclusive and transparent local government here in Palo Alto."

The Junar Open Data Platform is the one service that governments and other innovative organizations need to easily and quickly collect, enhance, publish, socialize, and report on their Open Data. The Junar Platform is available immediately and to activate a free trial account and be up and running in minutes, go to http://www.junar.com.

About Junar
Junar powers the Data Economy by delivering the easiest-to-use, cloud-based Open Data platform. For innovative organizations, Junar is the fastest way to publish data. The Junar platform enables businesses, governments, and organizations to free their data to drive new opportunities, collaboration, and transparency. Some of the world's leading companies trust Junar with their most valuable assets: their data and the end users who are viewing and using it. Learn more and sign up for a free trial at http://www.junar.com and follow us on Twitter @junar.

City of Palo Alto Contact
Jonathan Reichental, Ph.D.
Chief Information Officer
650.329.2121
[email protected]

Junar Contact 
John C. Tran
Senior Marketing Manager
408.623.1662
[email protected]

SOURCE Junar