What is GovHack?

Govhack brings together web developers, designers, interaction designers, usability and accessibility experts, information architects, students in these fields along with others interested in working with the huge array of Australian government data already available online, whether in the government, private, not for profit or education sectors, as well as decision makers and professionals in government involved with collecting and publishing this data.

GovHack is an intensive day and a half exploring ways of creating mashups and applications with government data and services, and most importantly building some applications before the event is over.

What’s the goal?

Governments collect and publish enormous amounts of data, but have limited resources to get it into the hands of their citizens in engaging ways. The rise of web based mashups by third party developers, building their own applications on top of such data sets, promises to make the data collected and published by government exponentially more valuable.

The short term outcomes for GovHack include

the development of hopefully dozens of new applications and mashups on top of Australian government data and web services. the increasing identification and promotion of Australian government data sets by their "owners" building new relationships between Australian developers and government "owners" of data

Longer term outcomes include

• Making more developers aware of government data sets, and their (legal and technical) availability
• Encouraging government "owners" of data to license it so as to encourage creative reuse by third party developers
• Encourage government data providers to make their data sets available in ways that enable and encourage mashups and third party applications

How will it work?

GovHack is an intensive one and a half day event. From the afternoon of the 30th, through the night, and throughout the 31st, teams of developers and designers will work on projects based on Australian government web based data sets and services. At the end of the event, teams will have 90 seconds to showcase what they've achieved in the day. On hand throughout the event will be

• Data "owners" and experts from State and Federal departments
• Individual experts to help teams
• Excellent facilitators to help teams focus, and move forward throughout the event
• Copious amounts of power, wifi and caffeine

Showcasing the results

GovHack wraps up with lightning presentations from each team, showing what they’ve achieved. Invited members of the press and Government representatives can get a sense of what’s been achieved, and what it’s possible to do with government data and services. A panel of judges will award prizes for different categories - from the serious to the fun, to reward participants for their efforts.

Mashup Australia

The just launched Mashup Australia is perfect timing for GovHack. Participants in GovHack have the additional incentive of the prizes associated with the Mashup Australia competition, which closes two weeks after the event.