Government’s DTO launches ‘Digital Marketplace’ beta

The Digital Transformation Office has unveiled a beta version of its Digital Marketplace service for government procurement.

The Digital Marketplace was announced in December as part of the government’s ‘National Innovation and Science Agenda’.

The government said it would spend $15 million on the project, which is intended to make it easier for departments and agencies to purchase offerings from innovative small and medium enterprises. The Digital Marketplace is scheduled to go live in January next year and has been inspired by a similar service offered by the UK government.

Sellers listed on the Digital Marketplace are members of a digital services procurement panel established earlier this year.

“The Digital Marketplace will be an online catalogue of services, people and technology to assist government with service transformation,” Christopher Pyne, the then innovation minister, said earlier this year (Pyne was moved to the newly created minister for defence industry role as part of a post-election ministerial reshuffle).

“We’re keen to open this up to smaller and newly-established businesses who have traditionally found it too big a burden to prove their credentials to government. There have been too many hoops to jump through, so they simply haven’t bothered to apply for government ICT work.”

The beta is online at Marketplace.service.gov.au.