I’ve had a continuing interest in start-up ecosystems across Australia, having been a member of several of these ecosystems & helping to mentor and support a range of start-ups over the years. I’ve maintained a Canberra ecosystem map for about four years now, mostly for my own interest and to understand some of the relationships…
The Australian government has been touting the importance of innovation for several years now, with the Coalition’s innovation agenda recently conceded to be a political failure due to its lack of resonance with the Australian public. However underneath the politics, government agencies across Australia and New Zealand have been vigorously expanding their innovation capability, as the The…
A few months ago I interviewed with Andrew Ramsden of AlphaTransform, who has spent the last year capturing the thoughts of digital leaders around Australia (he also has a book in the works). He’s now published the interview as Episode 16 in his Alpha Geek Podcast – which is definitely worth checking out. You can…
I was privileged to attend CSIRO’s On Innovation Bootcamp on Wednesday and Thursday this week, a two day intensive for CSIRO, university and other government teams transitioning concepts from government scientific research towards becoming startup companies. This was the third round for the ON programme, with approximately 80 teams having now gone through the process…
The weekend just past featured the 6th GovHack event, involving over 2,000 participants in 280 teams across 41 locations in Australia and New Zealand working on 439 registered projects. Effectively the world’s biggest government hackathon, GovHack includes some amazing ideas on how to solve public challenges, using open data from agencies in innovative ways. Whether…
It’s tough to be innovative in many organisations – there’s systems that try to regulate and direct change, managing its pace and impact, there’s personalities and politics at play competing over limited resources and there’s the inherent tendency for most to build cultures focused on stability and continuity over change, uncertainty and risk taking. It’s…
Role models are incredibly important for humans across both their personal and professional lives. Role models can help show us and make us believe we can exceed our own boundaries. They can open doors and windows to new ideas, fostering innovation and positive change. The more restricted and limiting the environment, the more important role…
On Monday this week I participated in the cocreation workshop for Australia’s Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Action Plan (NAP) commitments. For background on the Open Government Partnership (OGP), refer to opengovpartnership.org, and for Australia’s membership process refer to my blog post on the history (egovau.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/contribute-now-to-australias-open.html) and the government’s site (ogpau.govspace.gov.au). The workshop involved roughly 60…
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…
PS News has a great report on the growth of data.gov.au – linking to a report on the Department of Finance’s blog which indicates the site added 100 datasets in June. The site has also upgraded to provide more data visualisation capability for users, as well as a responsive template for improved mobile access. Most interesting…
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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