Vic govt offers cash for apps
On Friday, Victorian Premier John Brumby launched an application development competition with a prize pool of $100,000, with government data being opened up for use in the competition.
App My State website
(Screenshot by Colin Ho/ZDNet.com.au)
"Today we are also releasing over 90 Victorian government datasets to encourage new applications to be created," Brumby said in the competition announcement.
These data sets include locations of public internet access, licensed venues, and an inventory of outdoor furniture in Melbourne. At the time of writing, the government had released 92 sets of raw data.
ICT Minister John Lenders stated that the competition would have an "ideas" category with a $1000 prize to encourage entrants without technical expertise to participate.
"The grand prize winner will receive $35,000 in cash prizes — the largest prize pool awarded in this type of competition in the world. The judges will also award a second place prize of $15,000 and a third place of $10,000," said Lenders.
In addition, there will be a $10,000 people's choice award and technology prizes, such as camcorders and laptops, for runners up.
The statement claimed that the competition was the largest government-sponsored app development contest in the world, despite being open only to Victorian residents. According to the government, the competition will be open to "IT experts and novices alike".
"We have recruited some of Victoria's leading innovators to judge the competition — Peter Williams, Web 2.0 guru and director at Deloitte Digital, Marc Edwards from iPhone application developer Bjango, Kate Kendall from Niche Media and Georgia Webster from RRR's Byte into IT," said Lenders. "And I am a judge too."
The competition will close on Friday, 23 April. Details are available from the competition website.
The competition has come after the government recently announced a push to make public sector information accessible to the general public.
The New South Wales Government has also made attempts to open up its data to developers through its NSW data website and is also currently holding a government application development contest worth $100,000 called apps4nsw.
The NSW contest has been running since November of last year, and competition entry closes on 22 March.