GovHack 2012 took on some of the big issues facing government departments. Including, how does government engage with society to co-create a better future?
With a strong focus on government data, GovHack invited teams of programmers and designers to invent new and better ways of delivering government data to Australians. Teams with the best apps, data ‘mashups’, and data visualizations competed to win a share of some $40,000 in prize money.
As an in-kind sponsor, Link Digital provided a range of support to event organisers within the Australian Gov2au community. Most notable was the development of a website which supported the registration of ‘hackers’, the organising of ‘teams’ and the establishment of ‘projects’. The site became integral to running the event over the June 1-3 weekend in 2012.
Link branded the community functionality within the site as the ‘Link Lab’. Over the Saturday and Sunday, while teams developed, the physical Link Lab was manned by staff from Link Digital on-site at the University of Canberra InSPIRE Centre. Our staff provided expert support to the competing teams during the hack, mostly around the setup of their project pages on the www.govhack.org website
We were also happy to release our most recent addition to the Link team, Martin Ollman, on attendees during the Saturday workshop sessions. Martin is an expert on the installation, configuration and development of large scale Drupal platforms for Federal Government projects.
9 Comments
In Australia we have “Freedom of Information” legislation which is a lot like “Free Trade Agreements”… it only applies to stuff that nobody really cares about.
If it is “sensitive” it is blcked or blacked out etc… a true oxymoron
And I HATE CAPTCHAS… want comments?? ditch the captcha
Haha – thanks for the feedback on the CAPTCHA – it was a force of habit to include it, but I tend to agree. Akismet does the job of filtering spam fairly well, and I have comments pending a first post approval anyway
The less my government knows about me the better I feel.
What if the Government knowing something about you was perhaps of benefit to you? But, the point is that there is a great deal of non-personal data that could be more open.
hhmmm…te concept of “open-source government” is good, and to be honest, it would run much better if our corporate politicians suddenly found themselves outsourced
The block will always be how do you handle sensitive information…or could we evolve beyond the need to “keep secrets” that’s he question…who will risk it first.
Monty
I’m one of the volunteer organisers for Govhack.
The government is already releasing an increasing amount of data – Govhack aims to raise the profile of the released data, and show off what it can be used for. None of the data has personal details, so you don’t need to worry about big brother (at least not as a result of this event
).
What tends to happen is that websites/apps are created that use published data to shine new light on how we live, and how the government is functioning. Eg. Census data and the national archives mashed together to illustrate how a community has changed over time.
Its a good opportunity for experienced IT people to get back to basics and remember how quickly technology can be put together when there are no project plans, no analysis and no scope to worry about. And for new technologists, its a good chance to work with experience people and learn from mentors. Apply some fresh ideas. And of course there are prizes up for grabs.
Tickets are going fast – so register now if you want to participate.
Gavin
I’m with Baby Boomer – I’d rather the gov’t didn’t have “data” to share on me in the first place. Since they do, I don’t really want them to share it. lol
As mentioned above, the key is finding the right balance in defining and dealing with information that many deem to be private and sensitive, for which they wish no one to have access to. The creation of improved methods is a step in the direction “we” need to head towards. Doing so will perhaps lessen my personal default of the less they know the better I feel, as but that mindset may not always be in my best interests…
There’s a balance what government should know. Not as less as possible, or as much as possible. However, everything involved with privacy should be disclosed and monitored.