GovHack is an event that draws people together to innovate with Open Government Data. The best teams have a mix of skill so we encourage every one to come along including entrepreneurs, developers, designers, digital media creators, artists, story tellers, researchers and open data enthusiasts.

A “hack” is when you take something and make it better. So for this competition you need to take open government data and make it more useful or engaging.

GovHack runs over 46 hours starting with the competition categories announced on the Friday night of the launch. Teams then trove through the official data sets  to find new ideas or ways to reuse the data to win prizes in International, National and Local prize categories.

In 46 hours teams create a proof of concept and a video that tells the story of how the data can be reused. Many of the concepts are innovative community apps.  There are also a heap of entries that mash up data and display it in an informative visualisation or a creative artistic display. Teams work through the weekend and by Sunday 5pm you have to have submitted your team page, 3 minute video of your concept and any code/source materials.