{"id":36431,"date":"2023-10-20T14:44:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/innovation-face-off-why-we-need-to-look-outside-government-for-answers-startupsmart-2\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:44:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:44:00","slug":"innovation-face-off-why-we-need-to-look-outside-government-for-answers-startupsmart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/innovation-face-off-why-we-need-to-look-outside-government-for-answers-startupsmart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovation face off: Why we need to look outside government for answers – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Anne-Marie<\/div>\n
\n

By Anne-Marie Elias<\/em>
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Innovation has been around since time immemorial; it encompasses the creation of fire, the introduction of micro financing, artificial intelligence, and everything in between.<\/p>\n

The current narrative around innovation is focused on business, tech and startups.<\/p>\n

While this is absolutely necessary we need to think beyond startups so that we do not limit its potential to solve complex problems.<\/p>\n

Innovation is not just about STEM. It is about how we collaborate to solve complex problems in new ways, using\u00a0people with different\u00a0skill sets\u00a0and different ways of looking at things<\/p>\n

We have a long way to go for innovation to be meaningful and touch the lives of all sectors of our society.<\/p>\n

It’s time: We can no longer be optimistic about the rhetoric and platitudes. \u00a0We need to see actions and outcomes.<\/p>\n

Why bother?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In Australia one in seven adults and one in six children live below the poverty line, despite $250 billion annual expenditure by three levels of government, corporate and fundraising according to work by Associate Prof. Kristy Muir, Centre for Social Impact, 2013.<\/p>\n

This is the worst return on anyone’s investment. Something has to shift and\u00a0innovation is key.<\/p>\n

In the business of social change, people’s lives are at stake.<\/p>\n

The time has come to shift things radically, there is no time to wait when, despite enormous investment, things just aren’t getting any better.<\/p>\n

A little bit of history<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For 33 years I have been in the social change ‘business’ because I believed things could be better. I was taught to get involved – my parents were active in the Labor Party and the social services sector.<\/p>\n

From the age of 16, I was a youth advocate and from the age of 21 I worked for several cabinet ministers, NGOs and government agencies at the state and Commonwealth level.<\/p>\n

I learnt a lot about how things work and most of all I understood how to get around roadblocks.<\/p>\n

I moved from the ministerial office to the public service and then to the NGOs, searching for the place where I could make the biggest difference.<\/p>\n

I wanted to help those who had the power to change things to see what I could see – the need to do better with the resources we had, to apply innovative thinking to the way we solved problems.<\/p>\n

It then occurred to me that I couldn’t change things fast enough from any of those places.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I discovered the tech and startup sector. I was overwhelmed by the resourcefulness, collaboration and creativity.<\/p>\n

A life-changing discovery<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My journey led me to GovHack<\/a>. This is the largest civic hacking competition in Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The annual competition attracts programmers, designers, data scientists, business analysts and entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

What I love about GovHack<\/a> is the fact that it opens up government data and allows these collaborators to solve problems\u00a0in 48 hours.<\/p>\n

I know right \u2013 \u201cwhat could be achieved\u00a0in 48 hours?\u201d\u00a0you ask. Check out\u00a0previous years winners\u00a0and see for yourself.<\/p>\n

Hackathons encapsulate methods like:<\/p>\n