Roundup from GovHack 2017

Starting in a single Canberra venue in 2009, GovHack is now the largest open data hacking competition for government worldwide, with over 3,000 participants, coaches, mentors and organisers across 36 venues around Australia and New Zealand.

Over a 46-hour period participants including coders, creatives, data crunchers and facilitators, redesign and reimagine citizen services and use open data to visualise fresh insights into government decision-making, taking part in a competition with over 80 prizes and a prize pool of over $250,000.

The event is organised and run by volunteers, but GovHack has support from the Australian and New Zealand Governments, all Australian state and territory governments and many local governments across ANZ, as well as a range of corporate sponsors. This was the first year that the Northern Territory became involved with the event.

Many senior public servants drop into the event over the weekend, and have a keen interest in using ideas from GovHack within their agencies.

This year Accenture was the Platinum Sponsor for GovHack, the first time a corporation has taken such a significant interest in the event - a trend I hope continues as these types of event gain steam as a creative way for companies and governments to innovate quickly.

Accenture sponsored two awards, the ‘Into the New’ award for Australia challenged participants to demonstrate innovation and new thinking in all forms. This could be new ways to experience and interact with public data or new approaches to citizen experiences that help citizen and governments journey into the new together. It attracted 138 entrants from around Australia, from a total of 373 projects submitted.

Accenture’s ‘Re:Invention’ award for New Zealand challenged participants to design a citizen experience that builds on something government already does to deliver a more effective and engaging way of interacting. It attracted 12 entrants from Wellington, Auckland and Hamilton, from a total of 66 New Zealand projects submitted.

GovHack by the numbers

While GovHack itself is over for 2017, state award events will be held in August, and an international Red Carpet event for National and International Award winners in October. You can view the closing video from GovHack 2017 here.

All the projects created this year are online in the GovHack Hackerspace, available for inspiration and learning – remaining online to provide hundreds of fresh perspectives on how government can deliver more value to citizens.

you can read more about GovHack 2017 in this LinkedIn post by a mentor, or on Twitter.