Late last week the shortlisted start-ups for the DataStart program were released – here’s why it’s significant and what happens next. In November 2015 the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, in parternship with Pollenizer Ventures, announced Australia’s first open data commercialisation competition, DataStart. Designed as a pilot to test the approach, entrepreneurs, data scientists…
Now that Australians are heading out of holiday mode, it’s a good time for a reminder about the Australian Government’s process to become a member of the global Open Government Partnership (OGP), through developing our first OGP National Action Plan. If you’ve not heard of the Open Government Partnership, in a nutshell it’s an international…
Over the last year in Australian government there’s been increasing rhetoric around transformation (primarily digital) and innovation. This has come both from the political level, particularly since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, and from the administrative level, as the Secretary’s Board and an increasing number of senior public servants have internalised these terms within their…
On 24 November Prime Minister Turnbull sent a letter to the global Open Government Partnership (OGP) Secretariat confirming that Australia would progress to full membership of the OGP by July 2016 (continuing the process started by the former Labor Government in May 2013). Australia will become the 69th member of the OGP, joining countries such…
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is currently asking Australians what they think of the idea of the ATO going digital by default. As they rightly point out in the Consultation paper, the current ability of the ATO to do this is restricted by legislation, which often defines the channels by which certain transactions can occur…
While successive Australian governments have touted ‘evidence-based policy’, a significant ongoing challenge within Australia’s public service has been generating or accessing the right data at the right time – particularly across agencies – for actually testing policy assumptions and following a more agile policy development process. I’ve personally witnessed the challenges within agencies of being…
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet have just announced a series of information sessions regarding the Open Government Partnership and the process by which the Australian government is seeking to involve the community and civil organisations in the development of our first National Action Plan by the end of June 2016. For information on…
Rosie Williams of OpenAus recently released her latest open data project, Open Charities, to provide insight into the financials of Australian charities. The service integrates the available open data from 53,000 registered Australian charities in a way never done before, allowing fast and simple analysis of charities by location, electorate and issue. To fund this work…
The other week I was in Wellington, New Zealand for the international Linked up, Loud and Literate: Libraries enabling digital citizenship conference. Below is my presentation from the day, including the story of a recent customer experience with an Australian government agency. For other presentations from the day visit nsla.org.au/digital-citizenship-2015.
Last week the Australian Government announced that it was taking steps to join the global Open Government Partnership (OGP). What’s the OGP? it’s a voluntary, multi-stakeholder international initiative supported by 69 national governments that was created out of the open government / Government 2.0 movement to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new…
This archive mirrors the original eGov AU blog — Craig’s professional commentary on AI, digital government and technology in public life, running since 2006.
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