Digital Marketplace for start-ups to access $5b in government ICT projects
23 Mar 2016
Media release Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne, and Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, Angus Taylor, today announced the first stage of an online Digital Marketplace for smaller businesses to access government’s $5 billion annual spend on ICT projects.
Minister Pyne said the marketplace was part of the Government’s $1.1 billion National Innovation and Science Agenda and was being led by the Digital Transformation Office (DTO).
“The Digital Marketplace will be an online catalogue of services, people and technology to assist government with service transformation. We’re keen to open this up to smaller and newly-established businesses who have traditionally found it too big a burden to prove their credentials to government. There have been too many hoops to jump through, so they simply haven’t bothered to apply for government ICT work,” Minister Pyne said.
“That’s a lost opportunity, because we know lots of businesses are on the cutting edge of digital innovation and can provide exciting solutions for governments to deliver better services at a lower cost.”
Assistant Minister Taylor said the DTO was establishing a series of targeted panels of providers, while the Digital Marketplace was being built.
“We’ve launched the first of these panels, a digital specialists’ panel, for professionals in this field, and all interested businesses are encouraged to apply through AusTender. This panel will also make it a lot easier for governments to access the digital expertise they need to supplement their in-house teams. These are just the first steps in a greater collaboration between government and the tech industry and I look forward to engaging more with this exciting sector.”
Over coming months, the DTO will look at the obstacles that block ICT suppliers from providing digital products and services to government. Discovery on the Digital Marketplace begins in April 2016, with a public Beta expected by the end of the year.