This years GovHack pushed the limits of government and community co-creation, seeing everything from handy search tools to improve access data, beautiful data visualisations, through to complex data conversion tools to improve the accessibility of existing data services.

‘With over 700 hackers undertaking over 10,000 hours of development, this is by far Australia’s largest partner program for government research and development. Government agencies had mentors on the ground to build community understanding of the information they hold, and the community was able to showcase clever ideas and talk directly with responsive government agencies from the federal level all the way through to local councils’ Pia Waugh, event coordinator said.

‘This event has now proven itself to be something beyond just a competition. It is now a serious engagement opportunity for government and citizens alike. We used multiple models of funding for prizes, and different types of prizes including mentorship, internships, entrepreneur prizes, together with our usual prizes for having fun and being creative’, Pia continued.

The competition continued with the themes of Open Government, Digital Humanities and Science. This years additional category of Data Journalism also extended the attendance beyond developers, to people who are interested in data analysis, how it is represented and communicated.

‘With a data hungry technically literate generation on its way through the current school system, understanding the fundamentals of how to analyse and communicate effectively with data are critical in ensuring a strong industry and indeed, a strong democracy. The inclusion of Data Journalism in this years event is our small contribution to growing these skills’ Pia continued.

The GovHack national and local teams wish to thank all those that took part from the competitors through to the mentors, the sponsors and the government agencies which have taken on the mammoth task of releasing their data and now for judging the entries.

The event couldn’t have happened without a dedicated team of over 45 volunteers from across Australia who contributed hundreds hours of their own time to ensure each of the venues provided an energetic and supportive environment for the competitors.

Projects from the weekend are online at http://hackerspace.govhack.org/. Over the next few days judges are assessing the 130 entries, and the general public can register on the HackerSpace to vote for your favourite hack(s).

Winners will be announced via a live stream on Thursday 6 June following GovCamp Australia from the Inspire Centre, Canberra. The live stream will be available on both www.govhack.org and www.govcampau.org.

GovHack 2013 extends a warm thank you to our sponsors. GovHack 2013 had over 60 sponsors across the nation, including:

• National Platinum sponsors: NICTA, the eGovernment Cluster, Microsoft and Intersect.
• National Gold sponsors: Palantir, LinkDigital, Linux Australia, Google, Relational IO, Nectar, Amazon Web Services.
• National Gold Government sponsors: National Archives of Australia, National Statistical Service, Department of Finance and Deregulation, Australian Taxation Office, National and State Libraries Australasia, Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, CSIRO, Geoscience Australia.
• Plus an enormous thankyou to the State, Territory & Local Governments who got involved including the South Australian Government, ACT Government, Tasmanian Government, the City of Perth, Queensland Government, NSW Department of Finance and Services, Brisbane City Council, Gold Coast City Council, Glenorchy City Council.
• All other local sponsors can be found on the 2013 Sponsors page. An enormous thank you to you all!

The GovHack team want to wish a huge good luck to all the GovHack participants across the nation, in Canberra, Adelaide, Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Tasmania!

Also on this weekend is the Random Hacks of Kindness competition in Melbourne. We look forward to sharing the outcomes of both events! Good luck everyone!

The GovHack team also want to wish good luck to all participants in the “National Day of Civic Hacking” in the United States which kicks off June 1. This event combined with GovHack Australia makes this weekend the biggest government-focused hack weekend in the world.

By hacking, we obviously mean in the good sense of the term

A hacker is someone who loves to program or who enjoys playful cleverness, or a combination of the two.

Also, keep your eyes out for Sydney City Data Slam on June 14th!

June is turning into the month of innovation and technical evolution and the GovHack team is extremely excited to be a part of it.

Good luck to all out competitors, enjoy the next 48 hours and we will see you online.

This year’s GovHack has attracted interest from some of the biggest federal and state government agencies including the Department of Finance, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the National Archives of Australia, and the South Australian Premier’s Department.

GovHack provides government agencies with a unique opportunity to engage with the developer, data, journalism, and creative industries to co-create in an environment where everyone has a goal to produce better outcomes for everyday citizens.

GovHack 2012 led to the development of applications which inspired agencies to improve their search capability such as photos.naa.gov.au through to analysis tools such as theopenbudget.org. The ABC has even used the same technology to create their own version of The Open Budget.

This year’s GovHack will see a fourth category of Data Journalism added to the existing themes of Open Government, Science, and Digital Humanities.

Pia Waugh, the events coordinator is excited about this new category, “Data Journalism opens up a whole new audience to GovHack. We have seen a real appetite for data visualisation and better representation of government data in general. This year there is a GovHack event in Melbourne focused on exploring ‘beautiful data’”.

With such a large prize pool and access to new data sets the GovHack team is getting ready for some fierce competition. Over 450 people have registered to compete in this year’s event, and the GovHack team is expecting well over 200 entries in the four different categories.

Pia is quick to point out that although event has a lot of competitors, they also have a lot of prizes to give out, “This year we have four themes with a dozen prizes under them at the national level which anyone from across Australia can compete for. In addition to the National prizes, State specific prizes will be on offer to encourage communities to build great solutions to local problems”.

The GovHack Team would like to thank our federal, state and local sponsors:

Federal

• Australian Bureau of Statistics
• Department of Finance and Deregulation
• National Library of Australia
• National and State Libraries Australasia
• Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
• National Archives of Australia
• Geoscience Australia
• Office of Spatial Policy
• Australian Tax Office

Australian Capital Territory

• The ACT Government

Western Australia

• Government of Western Australia
• Landgate
• Western Australian Land Information System
• Western Australia Public Transport Authority
• Department of Agriculture and Food
• Western Australia Department of Commerce
• City of Perth

Queensland:

• City of Gold Coast
• Brisbane City Council Libraries
• Queensland Museum

South Australia:

• Adelaide City Council
• Government of South Australia
• State Library of SA

Tasmania:

• Tasmanian Government
• Glenorchy City Council

New South Wales:

• NSW Dept of Finance & Services

GovHack also extends a warm thank you to our corporate sponsors, including Platinum sponsors: NICTA, the eGovernment Cluster, Microsoft and Intersect. And Gold sponsors: Palantir, LinkDigital, Linux Australia, Google, Relational IO, Nectar, Amazon Web Services.

A warm thank you to Newcast for being our in kind video sponsor.

For more information about GovHack visit www.govhack.org. For media enquiries contact Geoff Mason at geoff.mason@govhack.org or on 0404 660 673.

Solutions which then have a chance to become reality with over $40k in the national prize pool and a further $120k of local prizes. These prizes are divided up into competition prizes and some quite innovative entrepreneurial packages to encourage our best and brightest to further develop their ideas beyond GovHack.

Registrations have opened officially for the event today at http://govhack2013.eventbrite.com.au

Pia Waugh, GovHack organiser explains, ‘Last year’s competition saw government partner with developers and data enthusiasts to discover what technologies could improve how government makes it data available and services better, but this year we have set up the competition to enable government agencies to invest in promising projects beyond the competition’.

This is a big shift for the competition which the GovHack team is hoping pays off with some tangible outcomes for both the developer community and government. In addition this year NICTA’s eGov Cluster, one of the major competition sponsors, will run a showcase in Canberra for competition winners to talk about their ideas and entries with entrepreneurs and ICT industry leads.

The competition also sees several State and Territory Governments putting up local prizes for entrepreneurs and competition goals, which ups the ante beyond the national competition.

GovHack 2012 provided government with the opportunity to sample what hacker culture had to offer. The 2012 event saw 150 participants work with a couple dozen data sets to produce 42 solutions aimed at improving access to government data.

The GovHack team sees 2013 as an opportunity to raise the bar again. Eight locations spread across major cities and regional centres will support over 400 anticipated hackers. This will be the largest event of its kind run in Australia. It includes government representation from all spheres of government – federal; state/territories and local. All spending time with civic-minded hackers to get great outcomes for Australia.

‘Those government agencies who got the most out of last year’s event were those who were on the ground and promoting their data at ground zero. This year we have run government briefing sessions to give them the inside scoop on how to build interest in their data’, Pia said.

The competition is expecting a big list of Federal and State/Territory Government agencies, but is also attracting a lot of attention from some of premier brands of the ICT sector. This includes support from Platinum sponsors NICTA, the eGovernment Technology Cluster and Microsoft. GovHack is also supported by Gold sponsors Palantir, Google, Relational IO, Link Digital, and NeCTAR. There are also a number of strong local event sponsors and supporters around the country including the South Australian Government, Gold Coast City Council, Landgate, the Tasmanian Government, the ACT Government, Intersect, Newcast and AusGOAL.

All government supporters will be announced in the coming weeks, but thus far there has been strong support from several State and Territory Governments and the following Federal agencies: the Department of Finance and Deregulation, Geoscience Australia, the Office of Spatial Policy, National Library of Australia, National Archives of Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics with more to be announced!

For more information see www.govhack.org. For media enquiries please contact Geoff Mason at geoff.mason@naa.gov.au or contact a GovHack local organiser below:

•         GovHack Canberra – Pia Waugh (govhackau at gmail.com)

•         Unleashed Adelaide – Gail Fairlamb (unleashed at sa.gov.au – also see unleashedadelaide.com)

•         GovHack Sydney -  Anne Cregan (anne.cregan at intersect.org.au)

•         GovHack Tasmania -  Richard Tubb (govhacktas at gmail.com)

•         GovHack Perth – Nic Templeman (nic at communitycloud.org.au)

•         GovHack Melbourne – David Flanders (david.flanders at ands.org.au)

•         GovHack Brisbane – Ricky Robinson (ricky.robinson at nicta.com.au)

•         GovHack Gold Coast – Tanya Lipus (tlipus at goldcoast.qld.gov.au)

We are working closely with teams around the country to bring GovHack to most Australian capital cities for June 1-2, so you can participate in GovHack in city near you!

By registering your interest, we will keep you up to date on the event relevant to you, as well as let you know about national announcements about the competition, developer tools, data sets and more. We are making improvements on last years developer platform and once this is ready, developers will be able to create accounts to form teams, communicate with mentors and data custodians, and most importantly, submit their projects at the end of the GovHack weekend.

NICTA, through the eGovernment Technology Cluster are our key sponsor this year, and they will be running a special GovHack Showcase a month or two after the event for winning and runner up teams to present their projects to the VC and startup sector. We are also encouraging Government agencies and departments across the country to have smaller competition prizes but to allocate some funding to be able to build upon some of the outcomes of the Hackfest.

Last year saw 150 developers across Canberra and Sydney create over 40 incredible projects. You can see the event report from last year at http://www.govcampau.org/report/#govhack including the winning projects.

This year, we are expecting around 500 developers and 200 projects across the nation. It will be an exciting event! Because of the growth, we are also stretching out the judging process, so there will be some local prizes awarded at the end of the GovHack weekend, and all the major prizes awarded later in the week at GovCamp on the 6th June, which will be livestreamed from Canberra. This gives us a chance to give all projects proper attention and scrutiny.

GovHack Goes National

Please meet the team leads for our enthusiastic official Satellite events around the country! If you have any specific questions, either put them into your expression of interest registration, or contact the team leads directly

Please note, all official Satellite location details and other specifics are being added to the website in the coming weeks. Teams will send out notifications of further details to those who register their expression of interest:

• GovHack Canberra – Pia Waugh (govhackau at gmail.com)
• Unleashed Adelaide – Gail Fairlamb (unleashed at sa.gov.au) – also see http://unleashedadelaide.com/
• GovHack Sydney -  Anne Cregan (anne.cregan at intersect.org.au)
• GovHack Tasmania -  Richard Tubb (govhacktas at gmail.com)
• GovHack Perth – Nic Templeman (nic at communitycloud.org.au)
• GovHack Melbourne - David Flanders (david.flanders at ands.org.au)
• GovHack Brisbane – Ricky Robinson (ricky.robinson at nicta.com.au)
• GovHack Gold Coast - Tanya Lipus (tlipus at goldcoast.qld.gov.au)

A huge congratulations to the Unleashed Adelaide Team who had their upcoming GovHack Satellite event announced by the South Australian Premier last week.

Say you have a few developer friends and you can’t get to one of these events, you can run your own unofficial Satellite event by registering here. Please do ensure you understand the competition rules to make sure your project is eligible for the competition.

Sponsors

We have had some fantastic sponsors come on board including NICTA, the eGovernment Technology Cluster, Palantir, Google, LinkDigital and Newcast. More sponsors will be announced over the coming weeks.

We still have a few opportunities for national sponsors to support Australia’s leading hackfest and open data event. There are also opportunities for sponsors to connect with local teams for in kind or smaller local sponsorship opportunities, so if you are interested in being a national or local sponsor, please check out the link below or register on the form below as a sponsor and we’ll get in touch!

http://www.govhack.org/sponsoring-govhack-and-govcamp/

Governments and Data Custodians

We have also had a dozen or so federal agencies as well as at least five state/territory and local governments getting involved this year, which is extremely exciting. We are putting information up about the agencies, data sets, developer tools and other useful information over the coming month and warmly encourage more government agencies to get in touch.

We have an agency pack available, so please register your interest as an agency below and we’ll be in touch!

Register your interest

So whether you are a developer, potential sponsor, government agency, up and coming mentor or just a curious observer, please register your expression of interest below for GovHack and/or GovCamp 2013!

http://www.govhack.org/register-your-expression-of-interest/

GovHack 2012 hosted across Canberra and Sydney saw 150 competitors come together for 48 hours to produce applications, visualisations, web interfaces, and even jewellery using government data as a base.

“GovHack is a fantastic opportunity for our students to practically apply the programming skills they are learning towards real datasets. We’re looking forward to bringing even more teams from Canberra Grammar School to GovHack 2013”.
Matthew Purcell, Code Cadets Coordinator, Canberra Grammar School

The competition awarded $45,000 in prize money and had support from six Federal Government departments and the ACT Government, and drew the support from several major sponsors. A report of the 2012 event, including the GovHack winners and GovCamp content is available at http://www.govcampau.org/report/

Initially, the raw data was projected on a 3D mesh with the Z axis representing the temperature range. The resultant picture looks pleasing but given the day-to-day temperature variance, it doesn’t really allow the viewer to easily understanding the underlying trend. To try and resolve this issue, I used a statistical technique called polynomial least-squares ridge regression, where curves were ‘fitted’ to the underlying data set. The goal of this technique is obtain the best fit possible between the calculated curves and the original data.

To capture the seasonality of temperatures a separate curve was fitted for each of the 153 years using Matlab’s linear algebra functionality. Using the equations from these curves, a ‘smoothed’ data set was re-calculated and then this data set was exported into the Maya 3D framework using Maya’s Python api.

The integrity of the BOM dataset was excellent. However, during 153 years, there were approximately 170 missing values and these were populated based on a simple exponential moving average obtained from the adjacent data points.

I think the results look good which important as this means people are more likely to be interested and then engage in the message even their backgrounds are not that technical. However, I also think that the final image provides an interesting empirical insight into the change in Sydney’s climate during the past 150 years. What was striking for me was that winter seems to be disappearing — throughout the last 153 years, winter looks like a puddle of water thats been evaporating.

What do you think..?

What other insights can you determine from the picture…?

The 60 second video is available from the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDtZcuukneI&feature=youtu.be

(please allow a few moments for the video to buffer)

Thanks,

Australian bushfire policy for community safety is unique. Rather than attempting to evacuate all those who may be in the path of a bushfire, fire authorities in all States allow the public to make a choice: either get  out of the area early, or prepare to stay and defend homes and property from  the fire. However statistics shows that during bushfire the number of human fatalities due to the late evacuation or unawareness of bushfire is comparable to that of who decided to fight the fire (Haynes et al., 2008).

Purpose of this project is not to change the mind of people who chose to  stay and fight for their properties, but to help to those who could be  evacuated and saved in time, but failed to do it because of unawareness or being entangled in bushfire labyrinth.

Functionality of our software suite is based on the use of bushfire locations provided by Geoscience Australia via SENTINEL system. It continuously  monitors bushfire positions and, in case of proximity to individual, will  issue an alarm and quickly suggest the best way for evacuation. Massive propagation of the fire on large areas could affect road network in places that cannot be seen from the distance. Therefore people may choose wrong  road and be trapped in the middle of the fire. The unique feature of our  algorithm is to prevent such situation taking into account roads closed by bushfire and choose the way free of obstacles.

Additional capability of our  system is to report automatically geographical coordinates of the person  if there are no open roads for evacuation and he requires help of the  rescue team. Data processed in real time by our system can help to Emergency Management Agencies in analysis of number of people affected by bushfire, their routes of evacuation and, therefore, plan better number of ambulances in required locations, machinery and crews.

Our software can be used for different types of hazards  and further can be extended to handle floods, storms, and massive chemical  accidents and explosions.

Safe Route Project Presentation

`History in ACTION’ is a website which gives Canberrans and visitors the opportunity to create their own personalised bus tour exploring Canberra’s rich history.

What’s the benefit to the ACT Community?

With Canberra’s 100 Year Centenary celebration coming up in 2013, now is a great time to see the Canberra’s history as seen through the eyes of those who lived it. The National Archives of Australia has over 40,000 photographs of Canberra’s history, beginning with its establishment as the National Capital in the 1930′s and documenting its growth into the thriving city that we know today.

From the pictures of the first parliament standing on the steps of an incomplete (Old) Parliament House, through to images of Lake Burley Griffin sans water, these images tell the story of Canberra.

The `History in ACTION’ website provides a unique way of exploring Canberra’s history, providing photos and historical information connected to both suburbs and to particular ACTION bus routes. Any bus ride can then become a tour of Canberra’s history, solving the problem of a wealth of heritage information being untouched and unseen by those who would be most interested in it.

Who is it for?

The photos and stories in the National Archive tell the story of Canberra, but we often find it hard to connect these stories to the places we live and work every day. `History in Action’ provides Canberra residents a way to explore the history of their city as they commute through it, and visitors to Canberra can explore the city and suburbs of Canberra at their leisure, and for the price of an ACTION bus fare.

How does it work?

Using data from the NAA’s Photosearch and Mildenhall datasets we algorithmically tag photos by suburb and year. We then calculate which photos are geographically connected to ACTION bus routes throughout Canberra.

‘History in ACTION’ is built around a set of open source technologies designed for fast, iterative data analysis and visualisation, and designed to allow inter-operability between datasets. We designed the core visualisation to take JSON data as the input, with the intention of making it easy for additional datasets to be added to be added to the interactive map visualisation.

The nitty gritty: We used a variety of data analysis techniques in R to geo-locate our photos and attach their metadata, used a variety of Javacript libraries to create the visualisations on the web page and Python

Some of the technology used in creating ‘History in ACTION’ includes:

• Javascript
• R
• Python
• D3.js
• jquery.js
• Nginx

Next Steps

We plan to make the website accessible on mobile devices, using their inbuilt GPS tracking capability to locate nearby areas of historical interest and dynamically presenting these to the user.

The NAA data we have included in the website is fascinating, but Canberrans have even more stories to tell. `History in Action’ won’t be a static data silo, with no data going in and out: it will be a living representation of the life, photos and stories of Canberra and its inhabitants. We plan to incorporate the ability for Canberrans to add their own geotagged photos to the database, and also provide an API so that others can access this data.

By providing a tool for Canberrans to document their lives, `History in Action’ can be of use far into the future as the place we go to find out the fascinating history of this city.