Below is the text of a recently approved grant application.

Proposed event: GovCampConnect.

Purpose: 

  • to promote the GovCamp unconference model to the digital government sector in Ireland
  • to bring together the community which is currently fragmented (eg, open source, open data, education, health, policy, etc)
  • to promote cross-border knowledge sharing and collaboration

Background:

Having attended OpenDataCamp in Manchester and UKGovCamp 2016, and spoken to many people at those events, it became clear to us that community-centred unconferences were key to the success of digital government in the UK.

Last year we decided to bring this approach to Ireland. With the support of UKGovCamp and other sponsors we successfully delivered the first GovCamp on the island of Ireland in September of last year.

We want to build on that success, and deliver a bigger and better event this year on 2nd September.

We are therefore once again planning to hold a cross-border GovCamp at the same venue – a castle half-way between Belfast and Dublin. We will use the positive response and network from last year’s event to attract even more participants from across the island of Ireland.

How much they want: £500.

What they would use the funding for: Catering and venue hire.

About them: The organisers will include the organisers from last year plus a number of individuals who participated in the previous event and are now keen to promote it more widely: