Innovation and technology walked hand-in-hand at this year’s GovHack with the Northern Territory’s teams performing strongly in their challenges that focused heavily on practical, ethical and safe use of AI, particularly in the government arena.
The 2025 GovHack NT Awards were held at Darwin Innovation Hub on Friday October 24 with nearly 80 participants and supporters hearing from some of the teams along with a range of stakeholders who praised the talent of the 2025 cohort and encouraged them to go further with what they had built so far.
Darwin Innovation Hub’s Dante St James asked participants to “think bigger.”
“We often see these wicked problems in our world and think that ‘we are just students’ or ‘we are just beginners.’ But this is where true innovation happens. From those who look at a problem and think, ‘why hasn’t anyone solved this yet?”
GovHack is an annual open government data competition held all over Australia and New Zealand. Teams are eligible for prizes, in addition to honour and fame at the Red Carpet Awards.
GovHack is about getting our best and brightest, working with government data to innovate and create. It is about encouraging and celebrating our technical and creative capacity, connecting citizens with government for great outcomes, and building upon the social and economic value of open data published by government.
In 46 hours teams create a proof of concept and a video that tells the story of how the data can be reused.
This year’s GovHack NT Roll of Honour
WINNER – Nova Era
Allowing government teams to ask plain-English questions across datasets and get verifiable answers — every result is traceable, scored for trust, and grounded in real data, never guesses.
1. Thi Thuy Trang Tran
2. Son Lam Nguyen
3. Huong Thao Trinh
4. Nguyen Duy Nguyen Ho
5. Thanh Phong Tran
6. Nguyen Hao Vo
Read more about the project here.
RUNNER UP – NTelligence
NTelligence lets NT Government staff ask plain-English data questions and get explainable, evidence-backed answers—reducing spreadsheet chaos, speeding decisions, and keeping data private and secure.
1. Rafsan Rahman
2. Nawal Fatima
3. Ahsan Saeed
Read more about the project here.
HONOURABLE MENTION – Astra
Governments need AI tools that prioritise accuracy, transparency, and trust—enabling staff to ask data-driven questions, get grounded insights across departments, and make confident, ethical decisions without misinformation.
1. Fateen Rahman
2. Mahathir Md Taief
3. Mehraab Ferdouse
4. Amrit Niure
5. Aseem Neupane
6. Syed Haroon Ahmad
7. Saugat Poudel
See more about the project here.
