The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has partnered with Australian startup incubator, Pollenizer to create DataStart, an initiative to support data-driven innovation in Australia.
The initiative advances the Turnbull government’s innovation agenda and promise to work with the private sector on data-related, joint public-private projects. It will find, incubate and accelerate innovative business ideas that leverage openly available data from the Australian government, the government said.
The first winning startup will be decided through a competitive selection process and will be announced on 18 January next year.
Pollenizer and Right Click Capital are offering the winner a $200,000 seed capital investment. If both firms agreement to invest in the idea, the successful startup will be able to access the funds to grow their business and draw a salary during the incubation period.
The startup will also be supported by a team based out of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet who will help the company access government data, customer discovery and technical support.
Pollenizer said that more than 7,500 open data sets are available through data.gov.au and other government platforms and it is looking for entrepreneurs who can apply innovation and creativity to uncover new value and solve global problems.
Shortlisted applicants are being asked to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges from government, industry and investment organisations. Their ideas will be judged on criteria such as the level of innovation and commercial viability.
Data-driven innovation added around $67 million to the Australian economy in 2013, according to a PwC report released in September last year. It is also estimated that the Australian technology startup sector has the potential to contribute more than $100 billion (4 per cent of GDP) to the Australian economy by 2033.
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