NT government launches open data portal
- 29 May, 2019 10:30
A new NT Open Data Portal hosts 250 government datasets drawn from 21 organisations.
The Northern Territory government’s 2018-19 budget earmarked $1.72 million to launch the portal. Budget documents said that the portal would “support digital innovation and promote transparency by making government data more accessible.”
The initiative followed the 2017 establishment of the NT Office of Digital Government. In October last year the government launched the Territory’s first digital strategy, which flagged the open data portal as a key project.
The government said that before it is posted on the new portal data sets will be assessed “including against provisions in the Information Act to protect sensitive data and to ensure it is meeting appropriate data standards.”
“The portal is one of the key initiatives of the government’s Digital Territory Strategy and Action Plan that sets out a framework that will enable Territorians to make the most of digital technology to create and take on the jobs of the future, to build connections, to reach their potential and to thrive in a digital economy,” said Lauren Moss, NT’s minister for corporate and information services.
“As well as encouraging innovation, the exciting thing about the NT Open Data Portal is the ability to share and analyse data to identify trends, reveal causal factors and find insights that can inform policy decisions, improve service delivery and allow us to better understand and appreciate issues and impacts.”
Participants in the 2019 GovHack Hackathon, which will be held in September at the Darwin Innovation Hub and at the Desert Knowledge Australia Precinct in Alice Springs, will be able to use the portal.
“The NT Open Data Portal will enrich the 2019 GovHack Hackathon and I thank the Territory government in joining other Australian jurisdictions on the open data journey,” said the NT director of GovHack, Shanon Loughton.