Wrap up

It was a pleasure to have Minister Leeanne Enoch open the GovHack 2016 Queensland Awards, where the winners of the state and locally challenge prizes sponsored by the state and local governments; academia and private sector were announced.

Huge thank you to Katherina Drinkuth, the volunteer GovHack Qld State Manager and Master of Ceremonies Maree Adshead, CEO Open Data Institute Queensland. These ladies made sure the event was fun, inspirational and ran to schedule!

Leeanne Enoch MP talking #opendata at the #govhackqld awards

Challenge categories sponsored by the Queensland Government

This year the Queensland Government sponsored five Queensland GovHack competition state challenge and one national challenge prizes.

Advance Queensland – sponsored by the Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation
Age Friendly Community – sponsored by the Department Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services
Create a cutting edge concept: The Science Sandpit sponsored by the Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation
Educate us! – sponsored by the Department of Education and Training
Evacuation: Help us get away! – sponsored by the Inspector General Emergency Management
Hiding Wally! – jointly sponsored by the Office of the Information Commissioner Queensland, Queensland Health and the Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation (national).

The GovHack event is an annual open data competition held all over Australia and New Zealand which draws people together from government, industry, academia and the public. The aim is to pull people together to find new, interesting and innovative ways to provide benefits and services to the community.

This year’s event attracted over 400 registrations from Queenslanders to take part over the competition weekend 29-31 July at one of the venues across the state: Brisbane, Gold Coast, Logan, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton and Cairns.

In 46 hours, 70 teams used, reused and mashed up the wealth of open data published by the Queensland Government and other local, state and federal government across Australia to create apps, data visualisations, games, unique maker entries.

The winners of the state challenge prizes were announced at the GovHack 2016 Queensland awards held on the 2nd September.

Advance Queensland!

This challenge was sponsored by the Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation, Queensland Government.

The challenge:

The most innovative use of Advance Queensland data. Tell a story about the innovation movement in Queensland which is data rich, creative and visually appealing to engage, inspire a broad audience.

More information about Advance Queensland is available from http://advance.qld.gov.au/.

Winner: Unveil the Scene

Team - HackyMcHackFace

Unveil the scene is a web portal that showcases the Australian innovation industry, as well as the government bodies, private investors and general public who are supporting and growing this diverse industry.

The start-up and innovation industry of Australia is incredibly important to our future prosperity. However, it includes such a broad range of industries and new ideas, that it is challenging for anyone to fully understand this area - let alone how it can assist them in their everyday lives, and how they can contribute to further growth of Australian innovation.

In addition to raising public awareness about the extensive work happening in the innovation space, the web portal also aims to promote connections between innovators and their supporters.

Age-friendly Community!

Sponsored by the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services, Queensland Government.

The challenge:

Best entry that uses open data to support a vision for Queenslanders to live in age-friendly communities that allow people, regardless of their age, to stay active and connected, and to contribute economically, socially and culturally. In particular, an age-friendly community ensures older people are free from age-related barriers.

More information how to assess a community’s age-friendliness available at Age friendly community.

Winner: Community Companion

Team - Community Companion

The Community Companion device is for the elderly, the disabled and the infirmed. It will make it easier to engage people and for them to not feel so isolated and lonely. The Community Companion will help elderly people to overcome feeling disengaged, by delivering data technology to people who want to use it, but feel it is too hard. It will use single-touch technology and voice output. Android text-to-voice service will be used to speak the buttons as they are pressed. In the future the device will use Amazon Echo cloud-based services.

Runners-up:

The Good Old Life by The Good Old Life (Sunshine Coast)
Time Walks by WalkED (Brisbane)

Highly commended:

Grey Areas by 5 Shades of Grey (Rockhampton)
Search Party by GovHack Search Party (Gold Coast)

Create a cutting edge – the Science Sandpit!

This challenge was sponsored by the Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation, Queensland Government.

The challenge:

The best cutting edge concept that reuses Environmental and Natural Resources Sciences data to improve Government Service Delivery through one or more of the following:

Information Discoverability and Delivery (visualisation, education and promotion)
Community Disaster/Risk Awareness (preparedness and response)
Community and Stakeholder Engagement (communication, interaction, multicultural and special needs).

Winner: Breathe Easy

Team - Remark

Breathe Easy is an app that informs users of the levels of air pollution in real-time on an interactive map. It clearly illustrates the quality of air from poor to good. The web application is responsive for easy use on both desktop and mobile.

In the age of the “Internet Of Things”, sensors have the potential to be implemented in a range of locations and monitor air quality. This crowdsourcing of data will be invaluable in the future.

Runners-up:

Mother Nature by Weigetpaid (Brisbane)
Snap Ranger by Empower Rangers (Gold Coast)
WalkED by WalkED (Brisbane)
John Conner by Toowoomba Trio (Toowoomba)

Create a cutting edge concept - The Science Sandpit by Breathe Easy

Educate us!

This challenge was sponsored by the Department of Education and Training, Queensland Government.

The challenge:

The best use of government data in a hack which educates the community about a topical issue. Ideally your hack should be able to be used to engage and educate school children; other than this, you are limited only by your imagination and your data hacking skills.