Today we have the great pleasure of announcing Jim Mangiafico as the winner of our first legislative data challenge, Markup of US Legislation in Akoma Ntoso and the $5,000 prize. The challenge, which was open from July 16 to October 31, invited participants to create XML versions of US bill text using the Akoma Ntoso standard. We also asked for feedback about the Akoma Ntoso standard itself to help ensure US legislation can be incorporated properly into this international framework.
The decision was a difficult one for our three judges, but in the end Mr. Mangiafico’s submission, Four US Legislative Documents in Akoma Ntoso, earned the highest overall score in the challenge. The judges were particularly impressed by the complexity of his application of the metadata section of Akoma Ntoso to the bill text and the submission’s cascading style sheet.
We want to thank everyone who participated in the challenge. We all learned a great deal from the entries we received, and we hope everyone who entered will continue to contribute to the development of the Akoma Ntoso standard. And even though the first challenge is now complete, there is still time to enter our second data challenge, Legislative XML Data Mapping. The data mapping challenge is open now and will close on December 31, 2013.