And the GovHack winner is...

GovHack wrapped up tonight with drinks at CSIRO's Discovery centre.

Although many of the Govhackers had already departed for their drives and flights back to Sydney, Melbourne and other parts of Australia, around 30 people remained for the award ceremony.

At the awards, Tom Coates spoke about how only 20 years ago Tim Berners-Lee had written the document that laid out the core concept for the internet. He said that today we are seeing a whole new revolution based on the opening up of data and that this enables the community to help governments work - a transformational shift.

After deliberation, the judges gave honourable mentions to the teams
- What The Federal Government Does
- Project TeaLady
- It's Buggered, Mate

The Lonely Planet Award went to Rate My Loo for embodying the spirit of the day.

Second place went to Know where you live.

And the winning mashup was LobbyClue.

Well done to everyone involved!

Below are a few photos from the award ceremony - taken with iPhone so excuse the low resolution.


Tom Coates speaking at the GovHack award ceremony.

John Allsop (the main organiser) speaking at the GovHack award ceremony.

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A couple more great Govhacks

Here's some of the other mashups created at GovHack...

• Picture Australia location search
• What is my postcode? (View data by postcode)
• Who represents me? (System that maps addresses to their representatives and polling booths for reuse in other services)
• LobbyClue (mapping Australian political lobbyists)
  

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Govhacking in Canberra

This afternoon I've been able to spend a few hours hanging out with a group of talented web developers, designers and programmers at Canberra Uni.

They've gathered for the Gov 2.0 Taskforce sponsored GovHack event, to develop new mashup applications and services using government data released at data.australia.gov.au and data.nsw.gov.au.

There's been a great deal of creative work done, from exposing the PowerHouse's data as a service, to an application for rating ACT toilets called Rate-a-Loo to mapping government agencies by function - such as this image of Transport-related agencies, to the creation of a 'lite' Australian version of FixMyStreet, appropriately named It's Buggered, Mate.

So far around 20 mashups have been submitted - based on 24 hours work.

I'll report on the winners later today.

Here's a few photos of the day...

What some of the developers looked like after hacking through the night.

John Allsop speaking to govhackers shortly before the presentation of the mashups created over the last day.

Senator Lundy saying a few words at the GovHack event.

Tom Coates from San Francisco, who was an international guest at the Govhack event. Tom has been involved with around 12 GovHack events around the world.

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The growing mobile internet landscape - but where's government?

2009 has been called the year of mobile internet - and with good reason.

The iPhone has become the fastest adopted consumer electronics product in history. Google's Android has become a serious mobile platform and smartphones of every shade have continued to multiple exponentially.

The mobile internet has been growing faster than any digital platform in history, as the below chart from Morgan Stanley as reported in TechCrunch's article, How The iPhone Is Blowing Everyone Else Away (In Charts), demonstrates.

So how is Australia's government getting involved in the mobile revolution?

We have seen the first smartphone games - from the Department of Defense and VicRoads.

We've also seen applications that mashup government data such as FoodWatch NSW using the NSW Food Authority database and the National Toilet Map.

However to my knowledge no state or federal government services have - as yet - been delivered on a native smartphone platform.

I wonder when we'll see the first. I don't expect they are far away.

By the way, while Australian governments haven't developed many applications, efforts are now underway to classify the thousands that already exist, as reported in the ITnews article, Classification board seeks to censor iPhone apps.

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Using forums to engage the community

Dr Crispin Butteriss of Bang the Table gave the presentation below at the IAP2 Conference in Perth October 2009.

It provides an excellent view of how governments can use forums to engage communities, including unveiling what types of feedback you can expect.

Thanks to Matthew Crozier who brought my attention to this over at Ozloop.

Using Forums To Engage Online

View more presentations from Bang the Table.

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