Digital innovation is at the heart of modern government and to help small and medium businesses develop better digital government services and utilise the best of emerging technologies, the NSW Government has called on experts across industry to take part in a roundtable event today.
NSW Chief Information and Digital Officer Greg Wells said 50 emerging technology suppliers would be part of the NSW Government roundtable event to help shape Government’s approach to sourcing emerging technologies and would help deliver new Innovation Procurement Pathways (IPP).
“As technology continues to evolve at a rapid rate the NSW Government is reaching out to its supplier ecosystem, including start-ups, to help find the best solutions and ways of delivering services,” Mr Wells said.
“We have made strides as a modern and customer-centric government and we want to continue to work with the experts in industry to try things that might be a bit out of the ordinary, to learn quickly and scale up when it works so we can find the best solutions for customers.
“The roundtable event will draw on the experiences of businesses with NSW Government and elsewhere to put forward the best ways to support innovation procurement.”
NSW is home to 64 per cent of Australian tech start-ups, hosts the Australian headquarters of more than 600 multinational companies, has Australia’s largest Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector and produces 66 per cent of Australia’s total ICT services exports.
Executive Director of Information, Communications and Technology and Digital Sourcing Mark Lenzner said the roundtable event was one of many steps taken towards the development of IPP and an easier way for businesses to work with government.
“Earlier this year the NSW Government gathered key insights from 116 respondents including 100 suppliers working with emerging technology. The majority of these had not engaged with the NSW Government before on innovation procurement,” Mr Lenzner said.
“We discovered solutions look different to big and small business and for those with government experience to those without.
“Regardless of their business most of the responders wanted some value out of a tender process no matter the outcome.
“They wanted to see the Government running trials which scale up and they wanted problem statements used more often to give suppliers the chance to shape the solution with their expertise.
“We want to be the easiest government to do business with whether you are a small to medium business or a larger enterprise. We want to have a thriving technology and innovation sector to keep helping solve problems well into the future.”
IPP will build on the work of the ICT Sovereign procurement taskforce which was established in September 2020. The Taskforce aims to cut red tape, facilitate opportunities for SMEs, and foster the growth and capability of Australian ICT and digital suppliers.
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