Digital Transformation in Government Insight #18:
iAwards for Government

The iAwards

The iAwards recognise outstanding achievements in the area of ICT, with state awards, national awards and the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards. The awards are hosted by the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), an organisation that dates back to 1978, when it was the Australian Computer Equipment Suppliers’ Association.

The iAwards cover five main categories: 

• Consumer
• Community Services
• Industrial and Primary Industries
• Business Services
• Public sector and Government

In addition, there are many other awards, including a variety of student awards, Start-up of the Year, and Best Research and Development Project to name a few.

Some key government winners of 2016 were: Service NSW, Northern Territory Police and Tasmania’s Sensing Tourist Travel.

Service NSW

We blogged here back in April about Service NSW as a great example of service unification and digital transformation.

Service NSW won two awards at iAwards, taking home the category winner for Public Sector and Government and also being named a merit recipient for Best Research and Development Project.

Service NSW brings together hundreds of transactions under the one site, focusing on user-centric design and using extremely agile project management to deliver new features every 12 weeks.

Northern Territory (NT) Police — facial recognition

NT Police’s NeoFace Reveal won the award for Infrastructure and Platforms Innovation of the Year.

The technology, which was developed by NEC, runs pictures from CCTV footage and other devices such as body-worn cameras against a database of suspects and perpetrators already in the NT Police’s system. The recognition process takes less than 10 seconds, replacing a matching process that took up to eight days in the past.  

Tassie’s Sensing Tourist Travel

Tasmania’s Sense-T Sensing Tourist Travel Project uses real-time data to track tourists’ behaviour, including their spontaneous decisions. Different travel patterns are tracked against a tourist’s age, home country, reason for travel, length of stay, and so on to generate meaningful data.

The project was run as a study, with tourists being given smartphones with a purpose-built app to relay the real-time data. The project was a collaborative effort between the University of Tasmania, Tourism Industry Council Australia, Federal Group Tasmania and Tourism Tasmania.

Salsa Digital’s take

The state and national iAwards are a great chance to see the innovative ICT solutions coming out of this country. Many of the projects across different categories will have flow-on effects for the private sector and the public sector, and they’re a great opportunity for the recognition of innovation. If you haven’t done so already, check out the 2016 winners.