IDEAL

Industry Driven Engagement and Learning Program

Annual Open Government Data Competition (GovHack)

Getting your best and brightest – Working with government data to innovate and create

GovHack is an intense weekend-long ‘open government data competition’ where participants use open data to solve social, economic, and technological challenges. The competition usually starts at 7 pm, Friday and ends at 5 pm, Sunday. In this 46-hour competition, teams need to create a proof of concept and a video that tells the story of how open data can be reused to solve a problem. Anyone who has a mind to think outside the box, enjoys playing with data, and generally loves a challenge can participate in this open data hackathon event. GovHack provides a unique opportunity to get exposure to new ideas from different perspectives and team up with people from diverse backgrounds to transform the ideas into reality. This year, ACU partnered with GovHack and hosted this largest data hackathon event at the North Sydney campus. Many took part in the competition both physically and virtually.  It was really exciting to see such creative and innovative minds come together and help provide solutions to a diverse range of challenges. 

Prof. Chris Lonsdale, ACU’s Deputy Provost, gave an impressive VIP speech eloquently connecting ACU’s core business and themes of this event – solving societal problems.  His passion for gender equity was apparent in his speech and reflected by the diverse mix of participants. Connecting with GovHack’s 2022 theme, Chris spoke about ACU’s Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science project with its goal of advancing gender equality and also FLB’s Global Social Innovation Challenge initiatives which aim to support remote and regional indigenous communities. Chris offered participants some inspiring tips for embracing the challenges and working together as a team to come up with great ideas.  

Comments

“The hackathon was one of the most fun events I have attended so far through ACU, free food and a certificate on my resume were my immediate motivators, however, through the time spent with my teammates who became my friends over the weekend I came to really enjoy the project we were working on by looking at it with a light-hearted but serious approach. The event led to my understanding of the process of creating large prototypes/projects as a group and the use of GitHub and other useful resources that we were able to utilise. Overall, it was a great experience that has become a gateway hopefully for more fun and similar events in the future.”

– Student

“I would like to thank the host ACU for their generosity and warm hospitality. My role in the GovHack is a team leader and project manager. This was a great opportunity to gain real world experience from working on real project with government datasets.”

– Student

“It was a great pleasure to meet, talk and collaborate with the participants coming from many different professional and academic fields during the GovHack. The team spirit was awesome and it was cool to see what can be accomplished during one weekend working together.”

– Student

“I want to thank ACU for giving me the opportunity to take part in such a historic event. It was an opportunity for me to learn, share ideas with like-minded people, improve my problem-solving and communication skills and being able to work with a team of diverse personalities. I also had the opportunity to expand my network and make new friends. It was an educative, informative and fun experience.“

– Student

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