Software application challenge for making government transparent, accessible and accountable

This is the coolest thing, I have found lately in the area of eGovernance. This sounds like best use of tax payer's money to open up government agencies to the citizens. The city of New York has opened a software challenge in October which is closed for entries but opened for public voting. There are $20K award associated with this challenge. I love the idea, can other local governments learn from this?
I played with some of the submitted applications, check it out the Application Gallery. I specially loved these:

• NextTown - This map based app lets you track your representatives and also what are they doing for your community. Wish Indian local governments could make the data available to make it possible to build such apps.
• Actuatr - This is a platform built to open up data for developers. Anyone can upload data and developers can build apps using simple REST API. Request URL is provided for API and data is returned either in JSON or XML format. There are datasets available to build apps. Check it out..
• NYCParkevents - The interactive map application lets users find park events by selecting on  the map or by searching. Clicking on the found events then take user to the respective content. Very useful and intuitive.
• NYCWay - WOW !!! This is the coolest one - 30+ iPhone apps   in one package. Must check..

and many more...I am still reading/using/playing. My best wishes for all the entries and good luck for lunch with Mayor !!