Pia Waugh is an open government and open data ninja, working within the machine to enable greater transparency, democratic engagement, citizen-centric design and real, pragmatic actual innovation in the public sector and beyond. She believes that tech culture has a huge role to play in achieving better policy planning, outcomes, public engagement and a better public service all round. She is also trying to do her part in establishing greater public benefit from publicly funded data, software and research.

She is currently working in the ACT Government as an Open Government Policy Advisor, and also works on the new dataACT open data platform, the first of it’s kind in Australia. She is awaiting a security clearance for a Federal job that she hopes to start sometime in this lifetime.

Pia started work as an Adviser to Senator Kate Lundy in April 2009. During her time in this role Pia co-developed the internationally awarded “Public Sphere” consultation methodology with Senator Lundy, was involved in many IT policy areas & become an active member of the Australian and global Gov 2.0 community.

Pia is also passionate about the Australian tech sector, and continually works to improve the scene for startups, SMEs and clever people do clever things in Australia. This includes work in policy development, in public consultations (eg, the ICT industry Public Sphere, and the Digital Culture Public Sphere) and is interested in how government procurement policy can better facilitate government engagement with SMEs to tap into a broader skills and services base.

Gail has worked in management roles in government, private enterprise and the not for profit sector across a range of areas including media and publishing, art and design, business, social and environment policy. She is currently exploring ideas and developing strategy and projects that bring the community closer to public policy-making and service delivery in the digital arena.

In 2010, Gail led the development of a multi-platform online engagement strategy to enable South Australians to participate in the formulation of South Australia’s Strategic Plan. This work has been recognised by the United Nations with a UN Public Service Award (2nd) for the category Fostering participation in policy making through innovative mechanisms. In 2011, her team won an IAP2 (Institute of Public Participation) Award (International) for a best practice community engagement project and a commendation from the Future Gov 2.0 awards for leading use of social media by government in Asia Pacific.