StartupIowa, a statewide collaboration of technology industry leaders, is hosting the OpenIowa competition April 27-29.

The goal of the event is to challenge developers to take open government data and develop technology applications that allow easier access to public information. The idea stems in part from the federal government’s website www.data.gov.

A similar competition was held in Washington, D.C., in 2008, and resulted in the creation of 47 iPhone, Facebook and Web applications. Information about location and registration is not yet available. For more information, click here.