TOP Is Almost 10!
2025 marks the 10th year of The Opportunity Project (TOP) — a major milestone for a program that has raised the bar for open innovation in government. In case you missed it in our last email, we’re now accepting proposals for 2025 sprint topics! Click here to view the proposal details. The deadline to submit a sprint topic proposal is Thursday, July 31.
New Report Highlights TOP’s Decade-Long Impact
As we celebrate the milestone 10th year of TOP, we are thrilled to announce the release of a new report by the Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE) for the IBM Center for the Business of Government, titled “The Opportunity Project: 10 Years of Open Data and Agile Development.”
Highlights from the report include:
- A dollar estimate of TOP’s value to the public,
- Interviews with TOP participants and collaborators to examine how TOP’s methodology has evolved over the past 10 years, and
- Case studies on CFPB, Sembrando Sentido, the Mountain | Plains Native CDFI Coalition, and many more that tell the story of the program’s impact.
CODE concludes, “After 10 years, TOP’s accomplishments are significant. It has produced hundreds of products, expanded the use and audience for open government data, created new and ongoing collaborations, empowered communities, and even fostered greater collaboration among private sector enterprises.” This is the second report that CODE and the IBM Center for the Business of Government have published about TOP, following 2019’s “Agile Problem Solving in Government: A Case Study of The Opportunity Project.” We hope you’ll read and share the report widely!
Later this year, COIL will publish an impact report celebrating TOP’s contributions to communities nationwide and its impact on the economy and government. Many thanks to the participants who have shared their testimonials. We can’t wait to share this beautifully designed report with you all, so please stay tuned!
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About the Opportunity Project
TOP is a program of the Census Open Innovation Labs that brings together technologists, government, and communities to co-create digital products that serve individuals and communities nationwide. Each year, federal agencies, local governments, and NGOs identify high-priority challenges and facilitate 12-14 week technology development sprints that bring together these cross-sector collaborators. To date, 250+ data-driven digital products such as apps, websites, AI algorithms, toolkits, and more have been created through TOP sprints, addressing challenges including economic mobility, youth homelessness, entrepreneurship, and more.
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