{"id":37945,"date":"2023-10-20T14:53:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/victorian-government-partners-with-the-startup-community-to-make-the-budget-easier-to-understand-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:53:15","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:53:15","slug":"victorian-government-partners-with-the-startup-community-to-make-the-budget-easier-to-understand-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/victorian-government-partners-with-the-startup-community-to-make-the-budget-easier-to-understand-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Victorian government partners with the startup community to make the budget easier to understand – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dalidakis<\/div>\n

The Victorian government has joined forces with a local startup in a first of its kind hackathon aiming to boost transparency and make the state budget easier for the masses to understand.<\/p>\n

Joining forces with civic-tech community\u00a0Code for Australia<\/a>, the Victorian government launched Budget Hack<\/a>, a two-night hackathon to develop tech ideas and solutions on making state budget papers easier to understand.<\/p>\n

“It was about making budget data more accessible and useable so we pulled together a community of developers, designers and offered some prizes,” Code for Australia director Dan Groch tells\u00a0StartupSmart.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Tech developers, university students and communications specialists formed seven teams to develop apps that decode\u00a0highly complex budget data.<\/p>\n

“From the government perspective, they were trying to push internally a change agenda on what needs to be done to make this more accessible,”\u00a0Groch says.<\/p>\n

Zendesk sponsored the event, and managing director Brett Adam says it was all about making the budget more user-friendly.<\/p>\n

“The\u00a0raw data is very dense and not really friendly for humans,” Adam tells\u00a0StartupSmart.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And it usually boils down to a simple question: “Where does my money go”.<\/p>\n

The event saw engineers from Envato working\u00a0alongside RMIT students, resulting in apps like ‘Where’s My Money’, an aggregated question polling system enabling the public to get answers from Treasury before the budget is announced.<\/p>\n

The hackathon wrapped up at Zendesk\u2019s headquarters this week where the winning team \u2018Bling My Suburb<\/a>\u2019 was awarded a $700 cash prize handed out by minister for small business, innovation and trade Philip Dalidakis.<\/p>\n

“It took all of the data and turned it into a map, and you could hover over the map and see where money was going in the electorate,” Groch says.<\/p>\n

With this year\u2019s budget brought forward to April 27, Dalidakis says\u00a0innovative digital solutions are needed for citizens to better understand government spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t pretend to have all the answers which is why we are engaging the industry for events like Budget Hack to help us find new and innovative ways to be more transparent across government,\u201d Dalidakis says.<\/p>\n

Groch says they are hoping to\u00a0roll out the winning apps before this year’s budget.<\/p>\n

Events like these are a great way to improve and enhance the relationship between government and the broader public, Adam says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship we have with customers and business at Zendesk is very complex but then you have the relationship with government and its citizens and that\u2019s very hard to understand,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Adam says\u00a0more businesses and corporates should get involved in events like these moving forward to help unravel some of the complexity and barriers between the government and the community.<\/p>\n

With the tech and startup world\u2019s ability and experience in deciphering complex data, he says\u00a0there is great potential for local talent to come together for the benefit of the broader public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt fosters an increasing transparency,\u201d Adam\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook<\/a>,<\/em> Twitter<\/a>,<\/em> LinkedIn<\/a><\/em> and<\/em> SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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