Ready to Solve the Nation’s Greatest Challenges?
Join our community of innovators using government data to build digital tools with, by, and for the people. We offer ongoing opportunities to connect to The Opportunity Project throughout the year.
Get Started with The Opportunity Project
What is a Sprint?
Sprints are 12-week product development cycles that bring government agencies, technologists, community leaders, and data experts together to rapidly design digital solutions for the public good. TOP sprints typically begin in late summer or early fall and culminate at the annual TOP Summit in mid-December.
Run a Sprint
We can help your organization facilitate a successful TOP sprint to address national challenges.
Participate in a Sprint
We can match your skills and expertise, as a user advocate or technologist, to relevant TOP sprints. Learn more about participants’ roles in a sprint.
Advise Sprint Participants
We can connect you to TOP sprint teams seeking product and technology development experts as a member of the TOP Advisor Network.
Ready to get started? When you complete our signup form, a member of the Census Open Innovation Labs (COIL) team will be in touch within one week.
Watch The Opportunity Project Summit
The Opportunity Project Summit 2023 was a multi-day virtual conference that showcased work accomplished through TOP’s 2022 sprints. The event also featured conversations with leading experts and grassroots community members and provided hands-on learning opportunities for attendees.
Adapt The Opportunity Project Framework
Not able to join a TOP sprint? Use our toolkits – based on the TOP sprint model – to create civic impact with open data.
The product development toolkit can help technologists use the TOP framework to build digital tools for the American people. We cover user research, navigating federal data, and more. Civic tech organizations, coding boot camps, community organizations, and educators have all adopted the product development toolkit to create human-centered tools.
The TOPx toolkit enables government agencies to facilitate TOP sprints on a flexible and modifiable timeline. The toolkit includes a detailed step by step guide. Local, state, and federal government agencies have all successfully used the toolkit as a playbook to run their own sprints.
Compete for Prize Funds
If your team participates in a TOP sprint or uses the product development toolkit, you may be eligible to apply for the annual Open Data for Good Grand Challenge. Submissions for the 2021 Open Data For Good Challenge are now closed, but you can view this year’s winners and news of next year’s challenge by visiting the prize challenge page.
Stay in the Loop
Sign up for The Opportunity Project newsletter to learn about opportunities to join a sprint, attend our events, compete for prize funds, job openings on our team, and more.