The Business Research and Innovation Initiative is a competitive grant program to fund innovative companies to solve challenges and create new businesses. Collabforge was one of four companies funded to undertake a feasibility study on improving Australian Public Service co-design, collaboration and consultation processes. Specifically, the grant is focused on reducing barriers and costs to consultation, extending its reach, and delivering better outcomes in general through use of new technologies.
Collabforge have been working and dreaming in this space for the last decade, so we are extremely excited by this opportunity. And we’ve had some great wins on some of these fronts, especially with our cocreation and innovation platform. However, with this grant, we are merging this past experience and capability with the opportunity to properly research and explore totally new frontiers of technology and business model design.
If we are successful in the feasibility study stage, we have the opportunity to apply for a second grant which would fund a significant portion of the development of these new technologies and its related business model.
From the outset, we are devoting significant time to ensuring our concept is firmly grounded in the realities of consultation in the APS. The end technology and product offering will need to make business-as-usual consultation simpler and easier in order to support and nudge risk-averse public servants towards more open and collaborative styles of consultation. We are currently talking to people across the APS at all levels who have been involved in public consultation.
If you or someone you know could contribute to our research, please don’t hesitate to email us!