The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) will co-develop the official national government web portal, gov.ph, with BetterGov.PH, a group of volunteers focused on open-source civic technology.
The partnership was announced during the first BetterGov.PH Summit, marking a departure from the government’s usual reliance on private contractors for such projects.
The gov.ph software repository will be open for public inspection and volunteer contributions. Its source code is expected to be made publicly available in the coming weeks.
The summit also saw the announcement of the BetterGovPH Fellowship, a three-month incubator backed by the Philippine Open Government Partnership, WeSolve Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
Fellows will work on administrative problem statements submitted by the Office of the Ombudsman, Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Health (DOH), Department of Education (DepEd), and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
The fellowship secured Php450,000 in volunteer funding and grants from Mozilla.