This meeting is a casual introduction to see if there is sufficient interest to facilitate a GovHack 'node' or 'event' in Geraldton from 29-31st July. We have some sponsorship and key volunteer coordinators already contributing, but how and if we proceed depends on interest and commitment from others.
GovHack is about finding collaborative ways to work across the whole community, bringing government, industry, academia and civil society together to achieve amazing things.
Below is a description of GovHack, some options for Geraldton and some examples of outcomes from previous years in other locations.
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To run a GovHack event in Geraldton we would need:
- Teams - participants who would be willing to apply their talents to government data - visualising it, re-representing it, analysing it,
- Agencies - government agencies willing to share data, challenges, staff to assist with explanation and perhaps sponsorship for prizes,
- Sponsors - able to pay for venue, catering, coordination, prizes and other costs to keep the Geraldton node free for participants,
- Volunteers - whether your'e a mentor, designer, caterer, artist or entrepreneur or IT professional there's a role you could play.
GovHack: https://www.govhack.org
GovHack is a national network of free events to attend and participate in. The purpose is to get our best and brightest from across Australian and New Zealand working with open government data to innovate and create. It is about encouraging and celebrating our technical and creative capacity, connecting citizens with government for great outcomes, and building upon the social and economic value of open data published by government. GovHack is a catalyst to drive open data outcomes, stimulate innovation and demonstrate what can be achieved when we foster a supportive environment for creatives, entrepreneurs, government and industry to collaborate. GovHack is not just a competition. It is a vision for a more participatory and effective democracy and public service in Australia.
Check out the review of 2015 event for a full rundown: https://archive.govhack.org/govhack-2015-report/
Options for Geraldton 2016:
There is a whole pile of government data relating to coastal erosion, planning applications, carbon emissions, student enrolments, welfare recipients that we could visualise, analyse, play with in ways that resulted in better outcomes for community and government.
A full GovHack event would run over a 46-hour period, participating teams will build an application using open data — and go in the running to win some seriously cool-sounding prizes,
An introductory session for this year, bringing people together on the Friday to webconference with other locations around the nation and discuss possibilities for Geraldton. Then, connect again on Sunday night to see what's been produced around Australia,
Send a team to Perth. We could direct sponsorship and effort on sending a small team of participants and representatives from different Departments to the Perth event to get connected, inspired and then report back on how we could grow this in 2017.
Cases:
Great examples of projects completed during 2015. You can review all the winners here: https://archive.govhack.org/2015-winners/
WA winners https://archive.govhack.org/2015-winners/#Western_Australia
Minecraft your city http://2015.hackerspace.govhack.org/content/minecraft-your-city
Transport http://2015.hackerspace.govhack.org/content/iotransport
Question Time a game of policy http://2015.hackerspace.govhack.org/content/question-time-game-policy
RSVP
RSVP using the following link: http://bit.ly/poll_public_rsvp
Who to contact for enquiries: Andrew Outhwaite (0466 694 702)