Digital Transformation in Government Insight #113:
Govlaunch — a wiki for government innovation

What is Govlaunch?

Govlaunch is a community of local governments around the world sharing innovative ideas. While it started off in 2016 as a product directory for government, about a year ago Govlaunch expanded to include an area where local governments can share projects.

Govlaunch product directory

The original product directory allows public sector employees to search for a product or look up a category using tags. For example, you can search for ‘chatbots’ to see a list of chatbot products.

While the product directory is certainly useful, it’s the community of projects that’s particularly powerful.

Govlaunch projects

The project area of Govlaunch is a powerful community. Local government employees can see what other jurisdictions are doing, share knowledge and learn from each other’s successes. Projects can be filtered by tags/subjects, country and then state.

The scale of the project database is impressive, to say the least. While the exact number of projects registered isn’t clear, the list of countries provides an overview of the reach of Govlaunch. Currently, there are seven countries represented, and Australia has a substantial number of projects listed — way too many to count!

Some recent Aussie examples include:

• Volunteer challenges through Lean in Newy app (Newcastle, NSW)

• City Life dashboard that compiles a range of data streams including IoT data and AppleMaps traffic data (Brisbane, QLD)

• Smart parking system (Bayside, VIC)

• Smart city planning (Wanneroo, WA)

The Govlaunch audience

Govlaunch is designed as a community for local government employees. You do need to sign up to view and fully interact with the community portal, but the signup procedure is quick and easy through LinkedIn. Once verified, users can add their own projects and also link to data and tools they’re using.

Salsa Digital’s take

Govlaunch shows how governments around the world can work together and learn from each other, rather than working in isolation. This ties in strongly with Salsa’s advocacy around helping governments be more connected and consolidated. Govlaunch is a portal that helps the public sector connect with one another, and supports consolidation because governments can build on each other’s work rather than starting from scratch in isolation.