NSW launches Innovation Strategy

The NSW Government has launched a new Innovation Strategy aimed at strengthening entrepreneurship in the state and fostering a culture of innovation across government.

The new strategy includes a range of initiatives including creating a Ministerial Innovation Committee to encourage agencies to embrace innovation.

A new NSW Innovation Concierge (NIC) will be established to serve as a portal for entrepreneurs wishing to conduct business with the government. The NIC will operate a Shark Tank process to allow entrepreneurs to pitch transformative ideas to government advisors and industry experts.

The NIC, which has been launched in beta form, will also provide a way for individuals and organisations to ask questions about innovation in government.

In addition, $10 million will be allocated to grow the state’s network of start-up incubators and accelerators, as well as $3 million this financial year for direct grants to start-ups under the Innovation Launch program.

The program will provide seed funding of up to $150,000 to start-ups with ideas based on specific themes. The first round of the program is based on the theme of improving public transport access for people with disabilities.

Speaking at the launch of the new strategy, Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation Victor Dominello said the government has developed the strategy based on extensive consultations with business, research and educational institutions, the start-up sector and members of the public.

“We even reached into our own government departments and agencies to ask ‘what else can we do to strengthen the culture of innovation in NSW?’”, he said.

“We learned that businesses and universities want to collaborate with government to solve problems that face our society, but they want this to be an easier process. We learned that great ideas are not enough to generate commercial success. Innovators and entrepreneurs need more assistance — including government investment — to translate their ideas into successful products and services.”

Dominello said the strategy will also involve the expansion of the Regulatory Sandbox concept beyond the financial sector. Regulatory Sandboxes are environments to allow companies to explore innovative concepts that are currently constrained by NSW government regulations.

“Those governments that continue to operate on the model of ‘business as usual’ will soon be taken over by the digital governments of today, who will become the digital lions of tomorrow,” he said. “We have every intention of ensuring NSW gears up for that tomorrow.”

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) has welcomed the announcement. CEO Rob Fitzpatrick commented that the initiatives “will make it easier for innovators to connect within and across NSW government and is an important step in improving collaboration between public and private sector”.

Image courtesy of Christian Heilmann under CC