[@OKau] USyd Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program

Thu Jun 4 21:04:17 UTC 2015

Yesterday I was presented with a business strategy put together by University of Sydney students as part of their assessment for a 3rd year unit in social entrepreneurship. It is part of the USyd Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program.
Each semester students work in groups to research and present a business plan or strategy for social enterprises and this semester my business was one of those used for the program. 
I enjoyed seeing my business presented through someone else's eyes. The group met the challenge of getting across what exactly open data is which is no easy task and prepared this plan for me. Slides are at:https://sg1b-broadcast.officeapps.live.com/m/Broadcast.aspx?Fi=1f5cecfec1a75556%5F2fdacc1c%2D4148%2D41f1%2D8fae%2D01eb0a5be4cd%2Epptx
PDF report is at http://www.ausgov.org/InfoAus_Final_Report_IBUS3108.pdf
Yesterday was also my day for presentation of my own business plan, created as part of the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme to the BEC panel. It went through but I had substantial trouble getting them to understand crowd funding and the interest in political and financial transparency as a valid source of demand for a business. 
The panel of two decided that the market for tenders data was bigger in the business sector than any other and want me to focus on that to the exclusion of other audiences. My executive summary has to go to a government panel at -well they said DEEWR but I believe it is Dept of Employment. My plan will be sent through to gov if I remove those elements from it and replace it with focusing on the needs of business. From my perspective, I don't see much difference between a citizen wanting transparency and a business wanting transparency ie to know who is getting govt funds and what can be garnered about why. It's possible they were worried the gov panel would think information that enhances political and financial transparency is too political for a gov sanctioned program - (they didn't want the words political transparency to appear on my site). It's also possible they preferred business customers for their perceived capacity to pay more and are concerned about how they will respond to words like transparency. The experience raises some interesting questions about value and transparency and the balance of interests or at least how that balance is perceived.

Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)________________________________________
 NoFibs.com.au - Open Data Reporter | InfoAus.net - Founder and Developer 

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