Monday 14th August saw the second CivTech Forum Meetup. The Event was designed to continue working on the public service monopoly through guided networking and pace setting talks.
The first speaker was Robyn Scott, Co-Founder & CEO of Apolitical – a global network for government to solve the hardest challenges facing our societies. She illustrated that platforms have disrupted every sector except government and explained the need for better sharing information at a government level. For instance, according to its own data, a third of the World Bank’s reports are never read. The average OECD government spends about 40% of GDP on government and much of the work produced isn’t even looked at by those that produce it. Scott said, “We think we can do it, even if we don’t do it, it’s inevitable someone will do it. The time is now.”
Next, Ian Makgill – founder of Open Opps and Spend Network – shared findings from his analysis of public sector spending and demonstrated how better analysis and open data can bring much needed competition in government markets. Around 160 government tenders each month in the UK have only one bidder. Makgill said, “young and small is not a good place to be in government, and that’s a real shame.”
Once again, networking was facilitated by Chance & Community Chess Cards, prompting offers of connections, investment and collaboration. The randomly selected winner of a champagne prize was Clive Flashman of Flash Future.
This event was sponsored and hosted by The Rain Cloud Victoria.
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