Forty Ballarat competitors are gearing up to compete for more than $300,000 in the annual GovHack event at Ballarat Technology Park this weekend.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The 46-hour event sees teams of amateur and professional coders take existing federal, state and local government data to create apps and functions which can then be used by governments and the wider community.
Co-ordinator George Fong said the event not only allowed coders to show off their skills, but also provided an efficient way for governments to get “bang for their buck”.
“Over the last six years the enthusiasm and appetite of especially state governments has increased substantially. We’re now starting to get into local government levels,” Mr Fong said.
In addition to the prize money, governments from all levels are able to then work with teams to further develop their ideas.
One such project by Ballarat team cat/dev/null demonstrated the effects different data sets such as weather patterns and park area had on Victorian growth and development.
Their project, titled Growing Pains, won $5000 and is being considered as a long-term project by the state government.
Team member James Weir said the app utilised different sets of data which otherwise would never have been compared.
“They’ve got all the data but they don’t know what combinations they can spit out.”
Ballarat is one of 14 cities hosting the seventh annual GovHack, with New Zealand joining the competition for the first time in 2015.
The City of Ballarat has offered 52 data sets for hackers to use, ranging from information about planning permits to the density of registered pets in the city.
In 2014 the Ballarat Hackerspace team received an honourable mention for their work with local council data following the creation of their Pee on a Tree app, which used the council’s extensive tree data.
“If you own the data you’ve already got your idea about how you’re going to use it” said team member Scott Weston.
Head of crime statistics in Victoria Fiona Dowsley will be on hand at the Ballarat event, alongside prospective employers on the hunt for the newest talent in the coding community.