Published on the 18/03/2025 | Written by Heather Wright

Plus decentralised welfare distribution and tax collection system…

New Zealand’s answer to the United States’ DOGE is one of the problem statements, or tasks, being set in a Web3 hackathon taking place at the University of Auckland this weekend.

The three-day event, supported by soon to be disestablished government agency Callaghan Innovation, aims to develop solutions for public challenges, including creating a government department expenditure tracking system, dubbed ‘NZ’s DOGE’. It would see all government departments subject to storing their expenditure on a distributed ledger with a publicly available reason for the expenditure.

“That’s the spark we need to ignite a Web3 revolution right here at home.”

Callaghan Innovation says they hackathon, organised by Callaghan hosted online community and info hub Web3NZ, is a purely ‘academic’ exercise with no expectation any resulting projects will be adopted by government.

However, organisers also say the IRD has unofficially suggested an interest in how Web3 can help divert and process taxes, including income tax and GST at point of sale or at time of payroll to simplify tax collection and processing of year-end forms.

A decentralised welfare distribution and food security platform, using smart contracts to automate eligibility checks and payments and potentially including tokenised food vouchers tied to local suppliers to reduce fraud and ensure funds are spend on essentials, is another problem statement to be considered, along with an international marketplace for New Zealand’s dairy and produce price setting, so farmers don’t have to depend on a conglomerate for prices.

Sponsors for the event include NZDD, Easy Crypto, Base, Binance and ETHGlobal alongside the University of Auckland, its Business School and UniServices, the University’s commercialisation arm.

“[Auckland venture capital fund] GD1 (Global from Day One) and UniServices (Web3 investment) will have eyes on your projects,” Web3NZ has promised.

Kevin Whitmore, Callaghan Innovation business innovation advisor, says the hackathon aims to provide the ‘spark’ needed to ignite a Web3 revolution in New Zealand.

“The Web3 Hackathon New Zealand has been designed to build the future of New Zealand’s Web3 landscape by leading a shift in this capability on local shores,” organisers say.

Web3 is a somewhat vague term used to describe ‘the next iteration’ of the internet, built on blockchain technology and providing a decentralised, more user-centric internet providing users with more ownership and control over their data and digital identities.

The event organisers say unlike traditional systems where data and transactions are controlled by intermediaries such as governments or banks, Web3 enables peer-to-peer interactions, ‘providing greater transparency, security and user ownership’.

Event organisers say New Zealand Web3 holds the potential for transparent, secure and tamper-proof records, making it ‘ideal’ for streamlining public services and tackling major challenges, however, adoption and awareness have been low.

“Companies need both strategic understanding around where the blockchain adds value and the technical expertise – coding and software engineering skills – to take full advantage of this potential, and while NZ has pockets of excellence, broader capability is lacking.”

Paul Quickenden, Easy Crypto chief commercial officer, says “We’re interested in how we can help foster the next wave of Web3 businesses projects and products, and support the commercialisation of these rather than see our computer science students go overseas and switch industries due to a lack of local opportunity.”

The US Department of Government Efficiency is a controversial initiative established in January by the Trump administration and promoted by Elon Musk who spent around US$300 million to help Trump get into the White House again.

It was developed to create a financial and performance audit of the entire US federal government, to identify waste and fraud and make recommendations for reforms but it’s been slammed as a ‘slash and burn’ exercise, creating wide-scale redundancies, shuttering agencies and attempting to unilaterally cancel programs.

It’s also controversially gained access to highly sensitive personal information held in federal computer systems and is the subject of several lawsuits including ones alleging the agency’s ‘near unlimited’ access is violating privacy laws and presenting massive information security risks.

Web3NZ says there’s a $30,000 prize pool up for grabs including a ‘growing cash prize pool’ split across the challenge tracks and a grand prize which includes a ‘significant’ cash reward plus flights, accommodation and event tickets to attend the ETH Global Hackathon, on which the Kiwi event is modelled.

Participants range from students to professionals from a range of backgrounds.

Coding for the hackathon begins Friday evening and continues through to Sunday morning when projects will be submitted and pitches made to the judges. A number of pre-hackathon workshops are underway this week.