The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has partnered with Australian startup incubator, Pollenizer to create DataStart, an initiative to support data-driven innovation in Australia. The initiative advances the Turnbull government’s innovation agenda and promise to work with the private sector on data-related, joint public-private projects. It will find, incubate and accelerate innovative business ideas that leverage openly available data from the Australian government, the government said. The first winning startup will be decided through a competitive selection process and will be announced on 18 January next year. Pollenizer and Right Click Capital are offering the winner a $200,000 seed capital investment. If both firms agreement to invest in the idea, the successful startup will be able to access the funds to grow their business and draw a salary during the incubation period. The startup will also be supported by a team based out of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet who will help the company access government data, customer discovery and technical support. Pollenizer said that more than 7,500 open data sets are available through data.gov.au and other government platforms and it is looking for entrepreneurs who can apply innovation and creativity to uncover new value and solve global problems. Shortlisted applicants are being asked to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges from government, industry and investment organisations. Their ideas will be judged on criteria such as the level of innovation and commercial viability. Data-driven innovation added around $67 million to the Australian economy in 2013, according to a PwC report released in September last year. It is also estimated that the Australian technology startup sector has the potential to contribute more than $100 billion (4 per cent of GDP) to the Australian economy by 2033. Follow CIO Australia on Twitter and Like us on Facebook… Twitter: @CIO_Australia, Facebook: CIO Australia, or take part in the CIO conversation on LinkedIn: CIO Australia Follow Byron Connolly on Twitter:@ByronConnolly Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe