Victoria lands 90 new innovation starters

I'm thrilled to see a great initiative in Victoria. Premier John Brumby has announced that 90 new Victorian Government datasets have been released and set free for public access and consumption from www.data.vic.gov.au. That's 90 new ways to kick start innovation.

Premier Brumby has also launched App My State to encourage Victorians to use these 90 datasets to create new services to help Victorians. There are $100000 in prizes up for grabs, entries close on April 23rd.

At Google we're big believers that information is more powerful when it's set free. Much of the effort of the Government 2.0 Taskforce I took part in last year was put into making public sector information freely accessible to everyone. I firmly believe that there's no point keeping publicly funded, non-confidential public data (such as transit information, post box locations, recycling and waste collection information, public school catchment areas and countless others) locked up behind a Government firewall, of little use to anyone. I want to see this PSI freely available to all. It will promote great social benefits, not least the immense potential for innovative new products and services to be developed here. We saw some great mash ups come out of our Hackfest competition.

Posted by Alan Noble, Engineering Director Google Australia and New Zealand