NSW govt seeks apps on education, World War I

The New South Wales government has announced a competition for apps based on open public data.

At the Open Data Summit today in Sydney, NSW Minister for Finance and Services, Dominic Perrottet, announced $45,000 in total prize money for the three best ideas.

In this latest in a series of “apps4nsw” competitions, the NSW government said it’s seeking apps related to education and communities, state records related to World War I, and family and community services. Submissions are due 13 November.

“Our citizens deserve state of the art services and we’d like to co-design them with the best and brightest minds in the private sector,” said Perrottet.

“There is a real wealth of agency data that developers will be able to draw upon and it will be exciting to see what they deliver.”

The app competition is part of an NSW government effort to broaden use of its data and drive technology innovation, said Perrottet.

“ICT is one of the highest priorities of this government, enabling departments and agencies to be more flexible, transparent and efficient in the conduct of their business.”

Earlier today, at the Commonwealth Bank launch of an Innovation Lab, Perrottet said government has much to learn from the private sector.

“Governments generally aren’t the best innovators,” he said. “It’s the private sector in my view that takes the lead, that governments can learn from.”

In August, the NSW government announced it would fast-track the release of de-identified open data under a new crowdsourcing initiative where it is seeking ideas from the community about how to improve service delivery across the state.

Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU, or take part in the Computerworld conversation on LinkedIn: Computerworld Australia