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.

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The GovHack 2017 Social Media Wall

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Get revved for GovHack across Australia & New Zealand (28-30 July)

As the world’s largest hackathon, GovHack  is on at over 25 locations across Australia and New Zealand again this year from Friday 6pm this week until Sunday afternoon (28-30 July).
With over 3,000 participants and 437 completed projects in 2016, GovHack is an opportunity to develop prototypes of new services, visualisations and mashups with government open data and other datasets with the chance to be nationally recognised and win prizes at national, state and local levels.

Supported by all levels of Australian government, GovHack is not just for programmers. Some of the projects in previous years have included board games and jewelry (for instance 3D printed bracelets of climate data), alongside websites, mobile apps, wearable apps and APIs.

National awards are announced at a Red Carpet Event, which filled the PowerHouse Museum in Sydney in 2015 (the last one I attended).


While some people form teams before the event, you can also come along as a solo participant, or form a team on the day – providing an opportunity to rub shoulders with all kinds of talented people.

There’s still room to register for some venues if you want to participate.

I’m helping run the ACT local event this year, so will be onsite at Canberra Grammar all weekend. If you’re participating here, come and say hi!

For more information visit the GovHack website or read last year’s report.

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When automation goes wrong - are we giving humans what they need to fix the problem? QF72

This is a brilliant (long) read about what happened when an automated system went rogue - and a cautionary tale about the risks of #automation when #ai replaces and deskills humans operating heavy machinery, like planes - The untold story of QF72 - What happens when 'psycho' automation leaves pilots powerless.

As organisations and our tools progress through #digitaltransformation and humans are relegated to 'backup systems', but  not given the necessary information or control to address unpredicted computer failure, we may be baking in more risk to human lives and livelihoods during edge situations.

Kudos to Qantas's pilots and crew for saving the lives of all passengers on this flight, and note the flow-on consequences that saw those responsible for saving hundreds of lives so affected by the experience that not all of them may have been able to deal successfully with a repeat of this situation. 

If we burn out good people when computers go bad, we may run out of good people before we run out of faulty computers.

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New year, new role, continued focus - Craig @ Accenture

As governments, companies, not-for-profits and societies continue to uncover the continuing impacts that digital technologies have unlocked, it's time for me to move to the next phase of my own career journey.

Humanity has only tested the edges of what digital can do for us, and our institutions and corporations are still learning and normalising the positive and negative impacts of digital transformation, and how it doesn't simply involve swapping tools, but changing culture, philosophy and structures.

I'm a firm believer that technology remains an enabler for our society and the myriad of organisations within it, however if we only half-do the work of digital transformation - treat it as simply another project, a coat of paint to freshen up ageing structures and thinking - we not only risk losing that massive value, but seriously damaging our companies, institutions and civilisation.

Digital disruption is continuing to grow at an accelerating pace, with the gap between digital leaders and laggards extending as the organisations that invested early, made mistakes and learnt from them, outpace those organisations wedded to past business models and processes.

The organisations that respond and manage digital successfully can harness its power to thrive - realising massive value, lasting advantage and all the returns arising from this, The organisations that do not will struggle to remain relevant - whether privately or publicly owned.

I've worked in this space for over ten years now, building on a further ten years of experience at the dawn of the internet age - and after working within and with government, it's time for me to take the next step in helping organisations realise the massive value from digital.

This week I started with Accenture Interactive in Australia as a Digital Marketing Senior Manager. In this role, backed by the global experience and expertise of Accenture, I hope to be able to scale up my impact, helping organisations to navigate and succeed over the next phase of digital transformation.

I intend to continue this eGovAU blog, but with a slightly amended focus reflecting my new direction and responsibilities.

The role may be new, but my focus continues - helping organisations, particularly across the public sector, to survive and thrive as digital technologies continue to advance.

There's so much more to be done - to normalise digital within organisations, to harness it for their continued success. I am looking forward to working with a range of clients to help them thrive.

If you'd like to chat with me about the road ahead, please contact me via my LinkedIn profile.

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