2019 will see the annual open-Government challenge ‘GovHack’ reach its 10th anniversary, freeing up hundreds of datasets and other Government-held records and information for wider usage.
Launched in Canberra at the Australian National University’s computer science laboratory in 2009, GovHack was brainstormed to promote the idea of opening government to the government itself.
Its first event attracted 150 participants
Marking the 10th anniversary, writer Peter Marks interviewed one of the organisers of the first GovHack, John Allsopp.
“John suggested the name ‘GovHack’,” said Marks, “a deliberate choice to create a bit of tension between Government and hacking and this was found to be useful for getting media attention.”
He said that back in 2009, the modern smartphone was only just coming out.
“No one built iOS or Android apps,” he said, “It was all web based stuff.”
He said the winner of the first GovHack was a project called LobbyLens which was built in Flash and correlated data about Federal Government business over the previous 18 months.
“It shows the connections between government contracts, business details, politician responsibilities, lobbyists, clients of lobbyists and the location of these entities,” Marks said.
He said another team came up with a project that used Census data.
“You put your postcode in and it would give you local information, like where the schools are,” he said.
“This is years before commercial services like Domain.”
According to Peter Marks, if there was a single overarching goal for GovHack in its first year it was to get Government to see the value in opening up its data “because there was already a hacker culture out there and this was an attempt to build bridges.”
He said 10 years on and today’s GovHack is about exploring data and technology.
Peter Marks’ full ‘look back’ at GovHack article can be accessed on the GovHack website at this PS News link.
