Seattle flags machine learning as integral piece of data program in 2018

A Facebook civic hackathon has inspired open data leaders in Seattle to plan for new machine learning apps and algorithms for 2018. In collaboration with city government, Facebook invited teams of technologists from local tech companies like Amazon to try their hand at civic tech. The Facebook hackathon pointed the coders at the city's open data platform, and pitted teams against each other with the goal of solving the city's toughest challenges with machine learning. David Doyle, Seattle's open data program manager, said the apps that resulted have convinced the coordinators that machine learning must play an influential role in the city's open data program. "As we enter 2018, we are encouraging all departments to think about how to potentially leverage opportunities to apply machine learning to their current and future open datasets based on the two use cases that emerged from the hackathon," Doyle told StateScoop.