The federal government is launching an online digital marketplace to encourage local startups to bid for the government’s $5 billion ICT procurement budget.
Development will be led by the Digital Transformation Office (DTO), the pet project launched by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, with the goal of overhauling the government’s customer-facing digital service delivery.
The DTO will begin by identifying obstacles that block ICT suppliers from providing digital products and services to the government.
The discovery phase will begin in April, followed by a public beta expected by the end of the year.
While the marketplace is being built, the DTO will establish a series of targeted panels of providers to encourage collaboration between the government and the tech industry.
The first panel is for digital specialists aimed at making it easier for the government to access digital expertise to supplement their in-house teams.
Minister for industry, innovation and science Christopher Pyne said the previous system made it too difficult for startups to apply for government IT work.
“The digital marketplace will be an online catalogue of services, people and technology to assist government with service transformation,” said Pyne.
“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.”
Suppliers interested in being a part of the digital marketplace are encouraged to apply on Austender.
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