Hackerthons for Training New Federal Government Consultants?

GovHack AGM Online

Could GovHack style hackerthons be used to quickly get the new federal government internal consultants up to speed?

Greetings from the office of AWS Australia in Canberra, where I am attending the GovHack Annual General Meeting. GovHack is a non-profit organization which organizes an annual hackerthon using government data sources. This happens at sites around Australia (and last year NZ as well). Teams build applications using the data, and the best win prizes.

The meeting is around an impressive boardroom style table, with a large wall-screen showing Zoom participants. A slightly quirk touch is that the room's impressive video conferecne system is not being used. Instead a smartphone is propped up in a takeout coffee cardboard tray. This is in the makedo-do spirit of Govhack. 

Many school, and university students take part, as do new staff at government agencies and corporations. In the past I have helped with university and defence department hackerthons. These are useful for people to learn to work rapidly on a project, and to work with people with diverse skills. 

I was asked about participation by the Australian Computer Society (ACS). I suggested GovHack would appeal to the smaller chapters and branches, for participation in grass roots activites (I am a member of the ACS Professional Standards Board).

The hackerthon format I believe has considerable potential as part of formal assessed school and university courses, as well as professional development, and workplace learning. The hackerthon is similar to the group projects which students in some disciplines, such as computing, undertake over six months to a year, but compressed to three days. This may be of use for training the new federal government internal consultants. 

Event canvas from NWIW 2020
by Paul Telling

The Australian Government has decided to reduce reliance on external consultants, and make more use of public servants, including an internal consulting team. This will require new skills, both for those transitioning from the private sector, and those used to working in one agency. The hackerthon provides a way to learn to work in a diverse team rapidly. Normally hackerthons are though of as open events. However, it is possible to run an internal event with cleared staff, working on sensitive matters. Over the last few years I have assisted with three defence related hackerthons (Navy Warfare Innovation Workshop 2020, Secure Supply Chains ADF/NZDF 2020). 

ps: You will notice that I appear on the Zoom twice: once in the room in Canberra, and secondly as an individual Zoom participant. Someone around the table asked about this, getting confused seeing two of me. In the past I found it much easier to treat a hybrid meeting as online, plus a room, than the other way around. This works fine provided I don;t have audio on (which causes feedback problems). One advnatge is to be able to post into, and easily read, the chat. 

Hackerthon Format Has Potential for Education

This weekend teams across Australian and New Zealand have been participating in Govhack 2022, looking at how free open access data provided by government, might be used. Here are some of the videos submitted today. There will be judging and award of prizes from the sponsors. However, I suggest this form of rapid fire development process could be used as part of an educational program. ANU Techlauncher, and similar group programs, take six months or a year, whereas a hackerthon can take 72 hours. This provides a useful simulation of the type of high pressure graduates are likely to find themselves in. 

Delays in Live Streamed Video Can Cause Problems for Clicker Quizzes

Livia Lam, & Tom Worthington,
hosting the Govhack 2022 Trivia, 
still from livestream, 20 August 2022

For months I have been taking part in weekly video conferences, helping prepare Govhack 2022. During that time I managed to avoid taking on more roles that the one I volunteered for: Government & Education Liaison. But during the last meeting before the event my video link stopped, & when I reconnected I discovered I was the co-host, Livia Lam, for the streamed Trivia event. We did this from a classroom at Torrens University's Sydney CDB campus. The format was much as used for live classroom quizzes, as was the technology used. 

Myself and the co-host were on Zoom, which was relayed to a Facebook live stream. The participants used a QR code to get to the software asking the questions. One problem was the delay of several seconds between us speaking, and when we were heard. The application used for the questions did not have the delay, so the questions we were reading out were after the participants had already answered. The delay was longer than just with Zoom, as the video then had to go via Facebook's system. Perhaps the makers of the quiz system could build a delay into it. 

GovHack Launch at Torrens University Sydney

Victor Michael Dominello,
openeing GovHack 2022 in Sydney 

Greetings from Torrens University's Sydney CBD campus, where Hon. Victor Michael Dominello MP, NSW Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, opened GovHack 2022. The theme of his talk was that the startup community can help identify the problems, as well as find solutions. Floods, fires, climate change, and jobs were confirmed as challenges for the start, as well as GovHack, he said there were than more than 14,000 NSW datasets open for use. One issue he focused on was a portable skills wallet, which can hold job relevant micro-credentials, and other certificates. This is not easy to achieve, with Australian university making several attempts at it over the last few years. The hypothetical qualification he said would be in demand was "Metaverse Engineering" at Torrens University. ;-)

ps: My first govhack was 2009.

GovHack this weekend in Canberra, Sydney and Elsewhere

GovHack is an annual open government data competition held all over Australia and New Zealand. Teams are eligible for some great prizes, in addition to honour and fame at our Red Carpet Awards.

GovHack is about getting our best and brightest, working with government data to innovate and create. It is about encouraging and celebrating our technical and creative capacity, connecting citizens with government for great outcomes, and building upon the social and economic value of open data published by government.

In 46 hours teams create a proof of concept and a video that tells the story of how the data can be reused.

The venue for Govhack Canberra, this weekend is YWCA House Level 3, 71 Northbourne Avenue.  Doors open at 5PM this Friday, 19 August.

Visit the event page on the hackerpace to register.. and add your dietary requirements, as PIZZA is back by popular demand!

ps: I am helping put on the GovHack committee. 

GovHack 2016

Greetings from Stone and Chalk, a not-for-profit Fintech hub in Sydney, which is hosting GovHack Sydney, part of the weekend GovHack event across Australia. There are several hundred people here prototyping computer applications using open government data for community benefit. They have until Sunday 5pm to produce a prototype and a video to describe it. On the way I visited the "Games for Learning" node at Boomworks, in the Inner West Sydney suburb of Camperdown and the "FinTech" node at the Tyro Fintech Hub in the heart of Sydney. The nodes are much smaller than the main Sydney GovHack, they each have a dozen or so people. The gamers are quietly at their keyboards aiming to out Pokemon, Pokemon Go. The FinTeckers are diagramming their way to systems using block-chain to get around roadblocks in Australian electronic transactions (Smart eInvoicing) and mine education department data to give international students better program choices (The Pinnacle). Here at the main venue there is a buzz of conversation and the click of keyboards.

All the venues are laid out in the "start-up", post-industrial open plan office style. Boomworks and Tyro are real re-purposed old buildings, whereas Stone and Chalk is in a modern high-rise office-building retrofitted to look old (by ripping out the ceiling panels to expose the air-conditioning ducts).

Local, state and federal government agencies have provided datasets for the teams to use, as well as prizes (along with companies). Teams of people, many of whom have not met before, have come together to spend two days working on something. Many are from the IT industry, as well as education and finance, or just anywhere. It is not really about winning, but to answer that nagging question: "What if someone was to ...". This is hacking, not in the sense of breaking into a system, but building something quickly. Under the GovHack schedule, teams have until 5pm Saturday to produce a Team Project Page and 4pm Sunday to have produced a video, with local prizes being announced at 6:30pm.