New Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy has announced a one-day innovation policy hackathon this coming Saturday, October 17 in Sydney.
He said Policy Hack will be facilitated by startup accelerator BlueChilli and bring together representatives from startups, venture capital funds, accelerators, other components of the innovation ecosystem, higher education, science, research and policy experts from key government departments.
“Policy Hack is a strong, initial foray into disrupting the traditional policy-making process,” Minister Roy said.
“It’s an opportunity to bring together key innovators and entrepreneurs from around our country to directly engage with the government on how we can foster innovation and entrepreneurship.
He said the Turnbull Government was committed to making innovation a centrepiece of the Australian economy and Policy Hack will use the ‘hackathon’ methodology to nominate, select and work together in mixed teams on new innovation policy ideas.
“Participants will be empowered to develop and pitch solutions that will grow agile, innovative and globally-competitive industries in Australia,” he said.
BlueChilli founder and CEO Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin said they were very excited to have a government that was proactively putting innovation on the national agenda.
“This is a great opportunity for the startup community to get together, workshop ideas and place them directly in front of government,” Eckersley-Maslin said.
Policy Hack will be held at the BlueChilli offices in York Street, Sydney on Saturday, October 17. More information is available at policyhack.com.au