APS Data Awards 2023

Contents

Winners of the APS Data Awards were announced on 17 May 2023

Key dates

Entries open: 8 December 2022
Entries close: 11:59pm, 13 February 2023 – Now extended to COB 3 March 2023
Shortlisting: Mid-February to mid-March 2023
Finalists announced on Awards website: Early April 2023
Finalists pitch to judges: April 2023
Winners announced at APS Data Awards dinner: 17 May 2023

About the APS Data Awards

The APS Data Awards are a celebration of achievement across the data landscape. The awards highlight innovative and resourceful solutions implemented across the APS which use data to make a difference to the Australian community. The awards also recognise outstanding APS leadership in improving the representation of data professionals from diverse cohort(s).

You can submit your completed nomination form by emailing it to the APS Data Awards team at data.profession@abs.gov.au.

Entry eligibility

Eligible entities: Individual APS employees, project teams comprising APS employees, or APS agencies are eligible to nominate a project. If the project involves other organisations, only the APS employee(s) will be eligible for the award. PGPA Act Commonwealth entities in the general government sector, and their employees, and entities that are agencies within the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and their employees, are also eligible. All nominations require endorsement by the nominator’s SES Band 1 and Deputy Secretary (or equivalent) prior to submission.

Nominations for the Early Data Career Award cannot have exceeded three years total in data role(s) as of the opening date for nominations.

Award categories

APS Data Leadership Award

This award recognises data leadership, data strategy, data governance or data discovery that leads to improved outcomes for Australians by maximising the value of data in a safe and secure manner.

Nominations should include data management initiatives that leverage data assets to support evidence-based decision making and data driven cultures to enable entities to uplift capability, innovate, or meet their mission, strategic goals and objectives.

Open to individuals, teams and organisations.

APS Data Sharing Award

This award recognises data sharing (or commitment to open data) that improves economic and social well-being outcomes for Australians by leveraging the value of data to inform key decisions. This includes policy development, service delivery, new micro-research and innovative data insights informing a complex problem(s).

Nominations should include data sharing, partnerships, or integration projects that apply the Australian Government’s Data Sharing Principles to enable better policy, regulatory, service delivery, or innovation outcomes.

Open to teams.

APS Data Analytics and Visualisation Award

This award recognises outstanding and innovative analytics that deliver accessible insights and data visualisations to inform decisions.

Nominations should include projects that delivered a clear benefit to the Australian public through an innovative approach which provides an evidence base for better decisions around policy, regulation or service delivery.

Open to individuals and project teams.

APS Data Architecture Award

This award recognises excellent data architecture and infrastructure development or implementation that maximises the use of data and ensures its protection.

Nominations should include infrastructure development projects which enable the better use of data, better data sharing, or greater data capability or maturity within the APS.

Open to organisations.

APS Early Data Career Award

This award recognises innovation and excellence across one or more data domains that have informed Australia’s decisions or improved the economic and social well-being for Australians.

Nominations should include individuals, or teams comprising individuals, who have up to three years’ experience in data-related employment.

Open to individuals and teams (including graduate teams).

APS Diversity in Data Award

This award recognises outstanding APS leadership in improving the representation of data professionals from diverse cohort(s) (for example women, First Nations, culturally and linguistically diverse, disability, neurodivergent).

Nominations should include individuals or teams who have gone above and beyond in contributing to improved outcomes for diverse cohort(s) in the APS, such as greater opportunities for career progression in STEM.

Open to individuals and teams.

How to enter

To nominate individuals, teams or organisations for the APS Data Awards 2023:

download the nomination form
fill it out and have it endorsed by your SES Band 1 and Deputy Secretary (or equivalent)
email the completed form to data.profession@abs.gov.au by 11:59pm February 13, 2023 – Now extended to COB 3 March 2023.

Submissions for the 2023 Awards will be accepted from Thursday 8 December 2022 until 11:59pm AEDT on Monday 13 February 2023. Now extended to COB 3 March 2023. No late submissions will be accepted.

Entry guidance

Entries can be about large or small projects, or completed milestones within longer-term projects, but most importantly you will need to show how the project was innovative and what benefits the project provided to the Australian community. Judges will take into account the relative benefits of projects, so that smaller projects can compete on an equal footing with larger projects.

For the APS Diversity in Data Award, nominations may be from any individual or team who demonstrated leadership in improving the representation of data professionals from diverse cohort(s).

To prepare your entry submission ensure you have referred to both the Award Category and the Submission Guidelines.
Complete all contact details at the beginning of the entry form.
Eligible projects, or milestones of larger projects, must have been completed within the reference period. This is the one-year period prior to the opening date for nominations. For the 2023 Awards, this is 8 December 2021 to 7 December 2022.
Complete a short project overview that describes the project, how it is innovative and what benefits it provides to the Australian community. Each entry should be approximately 500 words.
For the APS Diversity in Data Award, nominations should include an overview of the initiative, how your initiative improved the representation of data professionals from diverse cohort(s), and how you or your team have gone above and beyond to achieve this.
You may also include attachments which provide extra information about your project.
The nomination must be endorsed by an SES Band 1 officer and Deputy Secretary (or equivalent) in the nominator’s agency.
The APS Data Awards team reserves the right to recategorize entries which overlap between categories.
The APS Data Awards team reserves the right to extend the submission deadline at its own discretion.

Assessment process

Entry submissions will be assessed in two stages:

Eligibility check and shortlisting

The Awards shortlisting panel will ensure entries meet the eligibility requirements. The panel will then select up to three finalists in each category and provide these nominations to the judging panel. Information about finalists and their projects will be posted to the Awards webpage.

The decisions of the shortlisting panel are final and no reasons for decisions will be given.

Judging

Finalists will be invited to virtually pitch their project and its merits to the judging panel. Judges will select winners in each award category based on the original nomination and additional information from the pitch sessions. Winners will be announced at the APS Awards night dinner.

The decisions of the judges are final and no reasons for decisions will be given.

Meet the Judges

We are pleased to announce the judging panel for the inaugural APS Data Awards. The panel comprises data leaders from the APS, industry, and academia, and brings a diverse range of expertise to evaluate finalist nominations.

Lisa Jackson Pulver AM FRSN

Lisa is a proud Aboriginal woman with connections to communities in New South Wales, South Australia and beyond. She is Professor of Public Health and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy and Services at the University of Sydney. She is an academic leader, a recognised expert in public health and a prominent researcher. Lisa is a member of several strategic groups including the Australian Statistics Advisory Council and the Australian Medical Council.

Marcel Van Kints

Marcel is General Manager of the Data Strategy, Integration and Services Division, and Chief Data Officer, at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Prior to his current role, Marcel held senior roles in macroeconomic statistics, particularly in prices and economic research. He has complemented his ABS experience with international experience at the United Nations in New York. Marcel earned a Master of Public Administration from the Australian National University.

Marek Rucinski

Marek is Deputy Commissioner of Smarter Data at the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). In this role, he has strategic responsibility for developing and industrialising data, analytics and insights to support tax and superannuation administration and deliver value for the Australian community. Marek also chairs the APS Data Champions Network, which includes the Data Champions Executive and Forum. Prior to joining the APS, Marek served as Managing Director at Accenture, leading the data and analytics capability for Australia and New Zealand.

Michael Peel

Michael is responsible for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA) government clients in Canberra. Michael has a strong background in banking and asset management. Michael has domestic and international experience and has held roles in both the public and private sectors. At CBA, Michael is engaged with a range of departments and agencies across a number of areas including service delivery, enhanced citizen experience, and data and analytics. Michael has completed a Master of Science degree from the Hanken School of Economics in Finland.

Susan Calvert

Susan is currently the Managing Director of BETA in the Policy Innovation and Projects Division of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. She has a scientific background and a career of experience in designing and delivering innovative evidence-based solutions to the most complex public policy problems. Over the last year she has worked with the Office of the National Data Commissioner to implement the Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022 and enable data sharing for the benefit of the Australian public.

Victoria Vuori

Victoria is a law interpretation officer at the Australian Taxation Office. In her grad program year (2022), she served as a co-chair of the Graduate Data Network. In this capacity she helped shape the direction of the network and created opportunities to further improve network members’ capability in data interpretation and visualisation. In her current role she has an interest in data visualisation and the use of data to influence statute and governance.

Finalists

We are delighted to announce the finalists for the APS Data Awards! The shortlisted projects and the agencies they were nominated from are:

APS Data Leadership Award

COVID-19 Register and Linked Data Set (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare)
National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement (joint nomination from Department of Health and Aged Care and Australian Institute of Health and Welfare)
Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) (Geoscience Australia)

APS Data Sharing Award

The National Freight Data Hub (Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts)
COVID-19 Mental Health Services Placemat (joint nomination from Department of Health and Aged Care and Australian Institute of Health and Welfare)
Understanding Socio-Demographic Cohorts in the COVID-19 Vaccines Strategy (AIR-MADIP Project) (Department of Health and Aged Care)

APS Data Analytics and Visualisation Award

Closing the Gap Insights (National Indigenous Australians Agency)
Project ARTEMIS – Automatic Detection of Suspected Insider Trading (Australian Securities and Investments Commission)
Aged Care Market Intelligence (Department of Health and Aged Care)

APS Data Architecture Award

Like Domino's Pizza, DEA Delivers in Near Real Time (Geoscience Australia)
Cloud-based Platform for the Big Data, Timely Insights Program (Australian Bureau of Statistics)

APS Early Data Career Award

COVID-19 Mental Health Modelling (Department of Health and Aged Care)
National Ocean Ecosystem Account (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
Telling Questacon’s story with impact! (Questacon)

APS Diversity in Data Award

ABS Recruitment: a Commitment to Improving Diversity Outcomes (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
The Women in Data and Digital Community of Practice (Australian Public Service Commission)
The Women in Technology Services Network (Department of Home Affairs)

Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the APS Data Awards 2023! The Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, announced the winners and presented commemorative trophies at the Data Awards Dinner held on 17 May 2023 at the Rex Hotel, Canberra. A highlights video and a selection of photos from the event are available at the IPAA ACT APS Data Awards Dinner 2023 webpage. The winners in each category were: