Help Re-invent Government at GovCamp and GovHack

GovCamp is being held in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth on 19 July 2014. This is a week after GovHack. At GovHack, teams build new applications using open access government data. At GovCamp there is a discussion of how technology can help government. Both are free to attend, with venues across Australia (and the opportunity to set up new locations). See my reports from #GovCamp and #Govhack.

Open Knowledge in Canberra

Greetings from the Australian Chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation (which grew out of GovCamp). The keynote speaker is Dr. Rufus Pollock (Founder of Open Knowledge).

Open Knowledge Foundation Australia came from the volunteer committees which have runs the GovHack and GovCamp events across Australia over the past few years.

Dr. Pollock is being streamed live by AARnet. On a related topic, the Digital Canberra Challenge was launched recently.

Jane Treadwell Goes Naked at GovCamp

Greetings from GovCamp at the Inspire Centre in Canberra. The first speaker is  Jane Treadwell, CEO, DesignGov, who said she was "going naked", meaning speaking without any Powerpoint slides.

DesignGov is the Australian Centre for Excellence in Public Sector Design. It was established in mid 2012 to apply strategic co-design processes in the Australian Public Service.The initiative has parallels in the ANU Unravelling Complexity course, which I help teach.

Coming up before morning tea are: Steve Baty, Meld Studios;  Senator Kate Lundy, Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation;  Pia Waugh, GovHack MC and Cassandra Bisset, Objective Corporation.

GovHack 2013 Started

Greetings from GovHack Canberra 2013 at the Inspire Centre, University of Canberra, which just started (five minutes late due to some technical difficulties). It runs until 2 June, with people in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Gold Coast, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Teams of volunteers, ranging from school students to university professors, building computer applications using free open source government data. There is involvement from the three tiers of government (perhaps the UN next year?).

The four themes for GovHack 2013 are:

• Open Government
• Digital Humanities
• Science
• Data Journalism

There are National Prizes  as well as ones for the different locations. This year there are developer and entrepreneur prizes, where the winner are provided with resources to improve their application (other prizes are simple cash awards). There is also an award for the government agency which has made the best contribution to the event. Most of the prizes are from government agencies for use of their data. Best of Data Journalism prize is also new this year. Best digital storytelling is by Microsoft. Prizes will be handed out Thursday night at the companion GovCamp event.

On a similar theme, the Australian National University is hosting "Start-Up Camp Canberra 2013" from 6pm Friday 14 June to 5pm Sunday 16 June 2013.

NBN Digital Hub Gungahlin

Greetings from the NBN Digital Hub Gungahlin, at the ACT Public Library in Gungahlin (just across the corridor from the CIT Learning Centre Gungahlin). There are series of community rooms equipped with high speed wired and wireless broadband. There are also some large flat screen displays on wheels, with Apple computers attached and wireless keyboard for presentations. There are white-board walls. The furniture includes individual chairs equipped with desks. Also there is some colorful plastic children's furniture. The overall look is of a high-tech primary school classroom. I am taking part in a meeting for GovCamp 2013.

GovCamp and GovHack 2013 Open for Ideas

For the last few months I have been helping organize GovCamp and GovHack 2013 and we are now up to the stage of inviting expressions of interest from those interested in taking part. This is an annual event  part conference, part un-conference and part hacking competition, on how to make government better with technology. At GovCamp/GovHack 2012 150 developers in Canberra and Sydney worked on 40 projects. This year prizes for the best hacks will be announced at GovCamp 2013, 6 June. As well as Canberra, there will be satellite events in Adelaide, Sydney, Tasmania, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, see the website for details or to register your own site.

Australian Politics in a Digital Age

Dr Peter Chen's book "Australian Politics in a Digital Age" is available free on-line as well as a conventional paperback. It provides a scholarly, but still readable overview of the way Australian political parties, and others, have made use of the Internet over the last decade.  The book ends with Chapter 7 — "Policy in an age of information", which mentions of "GovHack 2012". This event was held in Canberra (and at satellite locations), with a completion to produce new government related on-line services. However, Peter did not mention the companion event GovCamp 2012, which was designed to educate senior public servants about use of such technology. That event blended a traditional conference with an "un-conference". I helped with GovCamp/Hack 2012 and planning is underway for 2013.

Information and communications technologies are increasingly important in the Australian political landscape. From the adoption of new forms of electoral campaigning to the use of networking technology to organise social movements, media technology has the potential to radically change the way politics is conducted and experienced in this country. The first comprehensive volume on the impact of digital media on Australian politics, this book examines the way these technologies shape political communication, alter key public and private institutions, and serve as the new arena in which discursive and expressive political life is performed. Employing a range of theoretical perspectives, empirical data, and case examples, the book provides insights on political behaviour of Australia’s elites, as well as the increasingly important politics of mirco-activism and social media. Energetic and fast-paced, the book draws together a wide range of Australian and international scholarship on the interface between communications technology and politics. Crossing several genres, the book will find a wide audience amongst scholars of both politics and communication, among public relations professionals, and with members of the media themselves.

Case study for open data and public engagement

Pia Waugh will speak on "GovHack: a case study for open data and public engagement" at the NICTA in Canberra, 14 June 2012. Pia did a brilliant job organizing the GovHack, event in Canberra and Sydney recently. The winning applications, created during the event make use of open government data in interesting, useful and sophisticated ways:

GovHack: a case study for open data and public engagement

Pia Waugh

NICTA SML SEMINAR

DATE: 2012-06-14
TIME: 11:15:00 - 12:00:00
LOCATION: NICTA - 7 London Circuit
CONTACT: avraham.ruderman@nicta.com.au

ABSTRACT:
Pia Waugh was an organiser for GovHack, a recent 48 hour developer event where over 40 projects were created from scratch around the themes of science, digital humanities and open government. Pia will talk about the event, how it worked, the outcomes and what it demonstrates about the value of public data being publicly available, the opportunities for science communications, and the innovation that results from collaboration across government, science, technology and civil society.

GovCamp Innovation Session

GovCamp today is having four afternoon session. I have been asked to chair session 4:

1. Learning to Innovate (Tom Worthington)
2. Webcast - Easing the burden for small business – let’s talk about it - Small Business Superannuation Clearing House, 11:30am 14 June 2012 (Department of Human Services).
   
3. Ideas is Easy: Avoiding the pitfalls of innovation.
4. DAFF in 2015: What should occur" What commendations look like?
5. New Enterprise Incentive Scheme on Facebook (DEEWR) #socmed foray tips + trips
6. How do YOU think government can take advantage of the NBN? DBCDE Graduates.
   

ANU at GovCamp

The Australian National University Vice Chancellor Professor Ian Young, is keen for more public impact. He should be pleased with GovCamp today, which I am helping run as part of public service innovation week. While it was not planned that way, I noticed several of the speakers, like myself, had an ANU connection:

Professor John McMillan AO, Australian Information Commissioner

... Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University. He is co-author of a leading student text, Control of Government Action. ...

Dr Sarah Pearson, DPhil, MAIP
CEO – ANU Enterprise
Visiting Fellow College of Business and Economics
Australian National University

Dr Mark Matthews
Crawford School of Public Policy
The Australian National University

Michael Chisnall – Executive Director, ACT Government Information Office

... currently undertaking post graduate work in online sociology and social network analysis at the Australian National University ...

Ken Pettifer – Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research

... He has a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the Australian National University. ...

ps: ANU has just opened the ANU Commons Canberra Conference Centre. I was asked about what was needed in a hi-tech conference venue (in 2008) and some of that has been incorporated in the new facility.

Open Government for Australia

Greetings from the opening of GovCamp 2012 in Canberra, where the Australian Information Commissioner is outlining the developments he sees:

1. Declaration of Open Government
2. Freedom of Information Reforms: Government information is a national resource for public purposes
3. Add "open and accountable" to public service principles:
4. Open Access Data list from AGIMO. This will include the FOI statistics.
5. AGIMO Guidelines for web pages

The commissioner noted that an application that uses open access data to show open government spending (OpenBudget) won a GovHack award on the weekend.

There is a live GovCamp webcast on the GovCamp home page.

Redesigning World Government Online

Following on from GovHack in Canberra/Sydney and Govcamp in Canberra, the global GovJam, commences 5:45pm 5 June 2012 (Canberra time). The event will be launched Senator the Hon Kate Lundy, Minister for Sport, Minister for
Multicultural Affairs, Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation (See video of Senator Lundy at the first GovHack in 2009).

You can take part in the GovJam from anywhere in the world online via the Global Headquarters (Canberra). There are also local events in: Brisbane, Canberra, Katherine, Paris, Köln (Cologne), Thessaloniki, Tehran, Milan, Bilbao, Madrid and London.

Here is the program for Canberra:

Wednesday:
8:30 am – 5:30 pm – Jamming
11:30 am – Transit of Venus
5:00 pm – link in with French Government and project transfers overseas
6:00pm – Dinner at Zieholtz UC (optional, at own cost)
7:30pm – Special Screening of I AM on Hyperwall at INSPIRE

Thursday:
8:30 – 5:30pm – Jamming, presentations, awards
Alcohol Tuesday evening is on a BYO basis.
So, what do you need to do to make this Jam phenomenal?
1. Check out the rules of the Jam - http://www.govjam.org/content/jam-rules
2. Check out your Jamming Wednesday:
8:30 am – 5:30 pm – Jamming
11:30 am – Transit of Venus
5:00 pm – link in with French Government and project transfers overseas
6:00pm – Dinner at Zieholtz UC (optional, at own cost)
7:30pm – Special Screening of I AM on Hyperwall at INSPIRE

Thursday:
8:30 – 5:30pm – Jamming, presentations, awards
Alcohol Tuesday evening is on a BYO basis.
So, what do you need to do to make this Jam phenomenal?

Reinventing the Australian Government in Sydney

Greetings from GovHack at Macquarie University in Sydney There are about 50 people here for the final session of the weekend event. Currently we are watching presentations from the Canberra node, where there are about another 100 people. They are showing applications using interesting combinations of government data in news ways: turning weather data into 2D jewelery, combining bus stop data with geographic databases to plot the easiest walking route to the bus stop. One of the most sophisticated proposals was Peter Chen's "WatChr" political analysis tool. Another application of notes was "Walk My Way", to encourage people to walk part of their journey before catching the bus.

A summary of the GovHack projects will be presented to GovCamp at University of Canberra on Tuesday:

ps: One of the more unusual uses of government data was an analysis of a proposal for a solar powered very fast train from Sydney to Canberra. This seemed fanciful, but developments in lithium iron batteries, developed for cars have made the batterers large enough to be considered for trains. Obviously the solar panels would not be located on the train but alongside.

Future of Government at GovHack Canberra

Greetings from Canberra, where the future of government started last night at GovHack 2012. The event was officially opened by technocrat Pia Waugh, at 6pm last night. Teams of hackers (in the original sense of the word, being innovative inventors) are working with sets of data provided by Federal and State Australian governments. Teams have until Sunday afternoon to come up with new and innovative ways to "mash" the data together to provide useful services for community and business. Prizes from government and industry will be awarded late Sunday. There are teams located in both Canberra and Sydney. On Tuesday, the results will be shown to senior government officials at GovCamp 2012 in Canberra.

The Canberra GovHack is being held at the University of Canberra Inspire Centre, which is designed as a prototype of the school of the future. A team of volunteers, with the help of the centre staff, have reconfigured the venue to be the government office of the future. The centre has WiFi throughout, to provide seamless wireless data access to large government cloud data stores. There are wall mounted screens for formal and informal presentations. The walls of the main building are whiteopbaords, from floor to ceiling, for brainstorming. All the furniture is on wheels, for instant reconfiguration. The Canberra site is linked by video conference to Sydney.

Best of GovCamp Videos

Best of GovCamp, is a collection of short videos from previous GovCamp, GovHack and related events for showing at GovCamp Canberra 2012.

I did not do any editing, as I found there was already an excellent three part video hosted by Senator Lundy, about GovHack. So interspersed this with screen-casts from Mashup Australia and videos from other such events around the world (all of which I found on YouTube):

• Teapots Animation
• Behind the scenes at GovHack - Part 1
• Fridgemate
• Behind the scenes at GovHack - Part 2
• NeoGopher Mashup Australia Screencast
• Behind the scenes at GovHack - Part 3
• GovCamp Singapore 2.0

This about an hour in total, which should be more than enough. It can be played with the sound off and the "Closed Captions" turned on (but not the auto-capture captions as they are amusing, rather than useful).

Suggestions for additions would be welcome, as would an edited version.

GovHack in Canberra and Sydney Starting 1 June

GovHack is a free event in Canberra and Sydney, 1 to 3 June 2012, were web and application developers design and build open government applications.

1. Register
2. Locations
3. Schedule
4. Data & Competitions
5. Media

GovCamp Canberra 2012

GovCamp Canberra 2012 is a free one day event for the public sector, industry and academic, on innovation in government, 5 June 2012. The event will be opened by Professor John McMillan, Australian Information Commissioner.

1. About GovCamp?
2. Schedule
3. Who should attend?
4. Register Now
   
5. What to expect?
6. How will it work?
7. Some Reading on Innovation

GovCamp is one of a series of events, there is also:

• GovHack, 1 to 3 June 2012: Run in Canberra and Sydney, over 48 hours to create mashups, apps and data visualisations. This will be more technical and hands on than GovCamp, and is intended for public and private sectors and academia.
  
• GovJam, 6-7 June: For public servants on new ways to do service delivery and innovate in government. At multiple locations around Australia and the world.
  

ps: I am helping with the academic panel for GovCamp. For my own take on innovation, see: Building Arcadia: Emulating Cambridge's High Technology Success, Designing for Democratic Dialogue and Internet in Government.