Thread by @RohanIrvine

First presentation is from the Local Hero's stage with @linaXpatel from @CodeforAus and Marvin from @LaunchVic friends sharing the impact of civic tech and how it will shape the future by bringing technologists and public servants together.
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Civic tech is focus is about being beaurecratically active not politically active.

Marvin: Civic tech is addressing social and civic needs through technology. They're very complex and neuanced

Lina: civic tech is very broad, it's technologists and designers working within the democratic realities of where they're active.

In non functional democracies it's very activist lead while in countries like Australia it's very focussed on collaborating with government

Civiclabs — last year over 3Billion was spent on goods and services in Victoria alone. Startups don't really get a look in and have access to that capital.
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Most public servant exist in the blue space, but when it comes to tech it's hard for them to keep on top of that as well as their portfolio needs.
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Civiclabs wants to help access capital into government and provide contemporary solutions governments aren't able to access and pull down the risk of investing in startups
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The two communities have very different mental models about how they create value and what change means. So civic labs focusses on bridging those gaps.
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Government can be a bit of a black box for people. Civic labs want to channel a pathway into government procurement to help transform a startups trajectory worth their first institutional investment.
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If you're a startup here's why you should be getting in touch with Marvin and Civic Labs
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Lina: The way code for Australia works is by empowering individuals to learn about how to work within the structures of governments over a 6 month.
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Move fast and fix things.

You can't break things in government because it can be catastrophic, so they're building cultures around fixing.

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When governments deploy they deploy at scale so the appetite for risk is low so part of Civic Labs work will be looking to build a sandbox environment when governments can test ideas safely.

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Lina: there's a healthy relationship that can exist and be beneficial for governments and startups when they both acknowledge they exist at a different pace.
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Audience Q: As a startup it was difficult working with government because we needed to train them at the same timst

Lina: You have to have the right mindset so we only collaborate with individuals within government who want to give something new a go.
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Marvin: The relationship between the people in the government and the startup is the most integral part to getting projects implemented.

They already know what the demand is, it's about how best to serve that demand.

The inverse is true for startups in the market.

A lot of folks in government are intrigued about how to deploy risk capital to achieve new outcomes.
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Q: How do you help startups manage the government tender process and navigate the high cost of bidding.

Lina: One way we're exploring this is called theintelligenceservice.co where we recruit like minded people together and we work together to fix it.

Sign up for secret missions

When they bring people into the intelligence service it creates a playful barrier breaking way to get people closer to the government people they need to be.
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Marvin: When you start to unpack the procurement process it's about risk management. Civic labs started by reverse engineering the risk process and proving that there was a way for start ups can address their concerns.
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It can be hard for people outside of government to understand the procurement process and it can be very opaque.
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Q: What type of investment is the 150k civic labs offer?

Marvin: The money from government is an investment to deliver a specific working solution. Civic labs will also invest to make sure you can keep your lights on when you're meeting the requirements.
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Great session with Marvin & @linaXpatel. I highly recommend getting in contact with them to suss out whether your startup could benefit form their programs.
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