Open government data hackathon a ‘major co-design exercise’

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A hackathon across Australia and New Zealand is returning this year to work out innovative ways to use open government data.

GovHack’s sponsorship lead Jan Bryson said the event gives public servants an opportunity to engage with citizens freely.

“It’s a bit like a major co-design exercise,” Bryson said.

“Participants taking on a challenge defined by an agency, it happens nationally, with citizens of every demographic, being enthusiastically engaged in brainstorming ideas and concepts to present to a body of experts (often public sector) to have their submissions judged by a panel of experts and oftentimes a monetary reward is a pleasant surprise.”

GovHack runs from August 18 to 20 in locations across Australia and New Zealand, including ACT, NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Northern Territory, Tasmania, and Western Australia. Further details about each location are on the GovHack website.

During the event, teams of four to five people have 46 hours to respond to a challenge set by one of the event’s sponsors by creating a minimal viable project (MVP) using open government data.

Challenges in 2022 were things like the Clean Energy Regulator’s “Helping Australia reach net zero emissions by 2050”, the Northern Territory government’s “Meeting short-term health needs outside of a hospital”, and the ACT government’s “Pricing public transport”.

This year’s sponsors include government agencies like the ATO, IP Australia, the NSW government, and Brisbane City.

After 46 hours, teams submit their projects to a judging panel. Winners are announced later in the year.

Bryson added the hackathon was an informal training session for the public sector, “a bit like achieving a micro-credential, in a non-typical, non-traditional kinda way”.

“They’ve achieved some professional development points, their team now has an uplift in their skillset, from which their department benefits too,” Bryson said.

“And then there’s the good news tales, when the team shares their story, their learning and their successes, and there’s the others they met, potential new hires and talented individuals.”

One public service agency was enthusiastic about what government could get out of the event.

“Through GovHack, we can get a fresh set of eyes over our data, and that opens us up to ideas we hadn’t thought of, particularly ideas for secondary use of data,” the ATO said.

Previous projects that have come out of GovHack include Search(t+1), a dashboard that used ABS data and historical data from the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme for start-ups to research their target demographic.

One of the people involved in the project and who now volunteers for GovHack, Atena Pegler, told The Mandarin the event was open to people of all skill levels.

“It’s just a great environment for anyone actually to learn other skills, they don’t have to be a developer,” the GovHack deputy operation lead and NSW regional lead said.