NetSquared has posted an announcement by Sunlight Labs about a contest to create applications that make Congress more accountable, interactive and transparent. Top prize is $15,000. It seems like an cool civic engagement contest for techies…the company says it’s all a part of their effort to encourage open source civic coders to help make government more transparent.

From their website:

Entries can be client applications, web based applications, applications that use the Adobe AIR platform, Java applications or whatever other kind of platform you’d like to write it in. Awards will be judged based on the following criteria:

1. Usefulness to constituents for watching over and communicating with their members of Congress

2. Potential impact of ethical standards on Congress

3. Originality of the application

4. Potential usability of the application

5. Code quality of application