[@OKFNau] non government open data? (and diversity as a side issue)

Thu Oct 24 02:28:59 UTC 2013

Hi all,

It's fantastic that there is such a large push to open up government data but I was wondering if anyone knew if there was a similar push to get non-government entities on board the open data bandwagon and if there was a central place people could search for this data?

For Example, I'm involve with ACS-W national board, which represents Women who work in the ICT sector in Australia. Which is a proffesion that is similar to Engineering in the fact that something like less than 20% of the proffesion are female. ACS-W have completed a survey on women who work in this area every two years for the last 6 years. I'm trying to encourage the board to open up that data to see if there is someone in the wider community who could also benefit or do some important analysis tasks on that data. I also know Engineers Australia also have a similar survey. It is all closely related to the work I do for Robogals and Girl Geek Coffee. Understanding why there seems to be a lack of diversity within these two industries is an interest of mine. I believe having a good understanding of the issues is a way for me to address them effectively.

In my search for open data on wages/income and diversity I came across this report: http://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/women/publications-articles/gender-balance-on-australian-government-boards-report-2012-2013-0 
which states: As at 30 June 2013, women held 41.7 per cent of Government board appointments. 

That seems to be a pretty good number. Seems the public sector is doing something about gender equality regardless of what is seen in Tony Abbott's cabinet. 
However from http://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/women/publications-articles/general/employee-earnings-and-hours-survey?HTML 
it seems the gender pay gap is still increasing (Though if a female is on an award she is likely to get paid more on average than her male counterpart. I'm all for equality, I believe there are some issues facing men as well that a worth improving, like having equal parental leave). Sorry for the off topicness but thanks for reading this far.

Is anyone up for having a discussion/provide some insight about any topic within this email?

>From Samantha Connelly
Robogals UTas President
Chair of ACS Young IT Tas
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-au/attachments/20131024/fedb8376/attachment-0001.html>