Open data pioneer: ‘I didn’t ask Congress, I just did it’ | Say Anything

"Waldo Jaquith didn’t set out to be a pioneer of government accountability. But after years of experimenting with government data for fun, the director of the U.S. Open Data Institute and creator of Ethics.gov finds himself at the forefront of a transparency revolution. 'I started connecting with people around the country who were also looking to create independent open data government websites,' Jaquith told Watchdog.org about his early foray into programming. 'We would take the data that government provided in a terrible format and present it to people in an understandable way that people could relate to and connect back to other sources of information.' What started as a hobby 20 years ago turned into a career when former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra contacted Jaquith to create Ethics.gov. Jaquith said the Obama administration wanted a website that would track political contributions and other government data in a user-friendly online format. Prior to his arrival, the administration tried to create the site but failed, as the task involved gathering data from multiple agencies and Congress ..."