• The Victorian government is offering $100,000 for web or mobile developers to create applications using government data. The App My State competition is part of an initiative to improve the public’s access to public sector data including crime resources, hospital maps and water information. The whole of the competition will be launched in late February.
• A recent Australian visit from Silicon Valley blogger Esme Vos of Pajama Entrepreneur has landed coverage for several local startups. Tjoos, Topikality and IPitch member ZapMe all saw coverage on the blog.
• Most events that offer experts like these are going to charge you, but Tom and Fenn of beloved Melboure startup Adioso do it for the love. This weekend the pair will be helping to host the second Melbourne YC and Hackernews meetup. If you aren’t yet familiar with those names, Y Combinator is a unique Silicon Valley incubator and Hackernews is its active message board. Tom and Fenn are former YC alums and you can read more about their experience in Tom’s last interview with IPitch. The even is at Match Bar and Grill at 3 p.m. on Sunday, find out more here.
• The first Australian Social Innovation Camp is creeping up at the beginning of March. The camp took 35 ideas from a multitude of disciples and whittled them down to eight topics. Much like Startup Camp, teams will come together for the weekend and spend the next two days developing a strategy around that idea and end the weekend with a presentation. Applications closed Wednesday for the March 5th event.
• In other “Camp” news another round of Startup Camp will be launching this weekend with developers, marketing and designers setting off in a mad three day dash to launch a product. Past sessions have given birth to startups such as traffic navigator iTraffic and event planner Activity Horizon. There are still 13 positions left for graphics designers and developers, find out more here.
