Tanner launches Mashup competition, unveils data sets

James Riley
Thursday, 01 October 2009 10:10

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner is looking for new ideas from the local Web 2.0 community with the launch of a new competition - MashUp Australia – seeking new applications for Government data.

MashUp Australia is the second Government 2.0 competition to be launched in this country in a month, after NSW Premier Nathan Rees launched the state’s $100,000 APPS for NSW competition.

Mr Tanner said the competition, which is being conducted by the Government 2.0 Taskforce he appointed in June, aimed to encourage new and innovative uses for public information, and would help to drive the move within government toward more open access to information.

Through the Mashup Australia competition, Mr Tanner’s Finance department has quietly launched a beta version of data.australia.gov.au – a website repository to public sector data sets, with most licensed under the Creative Commons – Attribution 2.5 Australia (CC-BY) license.

Some 15 Commonwealth agencies have released data through the website, with data sets ranging from federal electoral boundaries from the Australian Electoral Commission to the location of Centrelink offices around Australia from Human Services.

Importantly however, the data.australia.gov.au site has also tapped the Digital Economy Group within the Online Communications Council – the grouping of state and federal communications and IT ministers – to include significant numbers of data sets from various state governments.

"This contest allows government to tap into the wealth of ideas and experience in Australia’s online community," Mr Tanner said.

"At the same time it provides an opportunity for innovators to showcase their ideas and potentially be rewarded for their efforts."

The state government data set collections start to get closer to the citizen-centric services – ranging from location data for services ranging from boatramps in Victoria to public BBQ's in the ACT. They also boast a number of environmentally-focused data sets, like water consumption by suburb in Melbourne.

The Mashup Australia competition includes a $10,000 first prize for "Excellence in Mashing" and includes a series of minor prizes for a variety of categories, including Best Student entry and People’s Choice.

The contest is open from 7 October to 6 November 2009. More information can be found here.