Promising new digital entrepreneurs will commercialise new online tools with help from Flinders New Venture Institute at Tonsley.
The winners of the 2015 Unleashed South Australia Premier’s Awards, both designed to help people find a place to live in SA, will commence a 12-month development program with sponsors including Flinders University.
The startup ideas, called HomeShare and NextMove, will each receive $12,500 in prize money as well as business coaching from Flinders New Venture Institute, Majoran and Chillad Consulting to bring the products to market.
Unleashed is an annual open data competition where digital entrepreneurs use a range of previously unpublished data from Government and other sources and turn it into exciting new services, smart phone apps and web tools.
The Unleashed competition, conducted in both Adelaide and Mount Gambier, involved more than 200 participants and creating 47 projects based on 300 new state and local government datasets. The Unleashed and inaugural NexGen Unleashed competition for young digital entrepreneurs competitions led to 24 prizes, with all winners going into the national GovHack competition next month.
HomeShare, created by a team called Hactory, is a website aimed at connecting young people who need a home with older people who have spare room in their houses.
NextMove, the second Premier’s Award winner, is a web application to help people moving to South Australia from interstate or overseas.
It was developed by a team called XPressioneers, which comprised migrant professionals and international students living in South Australia.
“These are fantastic ideas that have important real-world applications, and I’m thrilled to see such innovation on display from our digital entrepreneurs,” said Public Sector Minister Susan Close at the award presentations in Adelaide.
“Unleashed is all about encouraging outside-the-box thinking to find new and exciting ways to use publicly available Government data,” Ms Close said.
Unleashed 2015 is the South Australian annual open data competition which is part of the GovHack competition held across Australia and New Zealand.
A full list of award-winners and event sponsors can be found here.