Qld aims to help SMEs bid for ICT contracts

The Queensland government’s Advance Queensland has launched a new initiative aimed at helping small-to-medium IT companies access government and large enterprise contracts.

The new Testing Within Government (TWiG) program will give up to three Queensland SMEs a chance to work with the Department of Science, Information Technology on a range of business problems.

Successful applicants will be provided with $25,000 in funding over the course of a 12-week program involving testing their products. Up to three of the six business problems will be addressed.

The six problems are workplace health and safety incidents capture, smart editing and style guides, short-term opportunities resource matching, self-service of environmental monitoring data, consolidated systems access management and crowdsourced data.

To be eligible for the program, applicants must be a Queensland-based business with fewer than 200 full-time equivalent staff, or demonstrate that their proposed solution will provide jobs in Queensland.

They must also have a product that is able to address one of the problems, and Advance Queensland has expressed a preference for software-as-a-service offerings.

“The TWiG program is designed to: accelerate the growth and capability of SME businesses in Queensland, provide valuable experience to SMEs in how to deliver products to large enterprises [and] encourage DSITI to work with SMEs to become more agile and innovative in solving problems,” the TWiG fact sheet states.

Image courtesy of Eduardo M. C. under CC