Press Any Key For Answers

Team Name

any key_

Team Members

Project Description

Press Any Key For Answers is a prototype platform (locally hosted) for exploring Australia's public data landscape.

It aggregates datasets from the ABS and other government agencies, providing a searchable inventory.

Users can quickly discover datasets, understand what’s available, and access them via links provided. The platform demonstrates a scalable approach for building a national inventory of public data.

Data Story

Problem: Government datasets are scattered across multiple platforms, making them fragmented and hard to navigate. As a result, much valuable data goes underutilised. Researchers, educators, and policymakers face challenges in quickly finding the datasets they need.

Solution: Press Any Key For Answers provides a centralised, searchable platform that aggregates datasets from the ABS and other public sources. Users can explore by keyword or source and view available metadata such as collection date, purpose, and access method.

Impact: The prototype demonstrates how a national inventory can improve data discoverability, save time, and empower users to make informed decisions using public datasets.

Future possibilities: The platform’s back end, built with PostgreSQL and Python, is flexible and scalable. New data sources can be easily added through the JSON configuration, and the data collection code can be adapted to handle other source types (API, web scraping). Additionally, advanced natural language processing could be integrated into the search functionality, allowing users to make semantic queries (e.g. connecting a search for “tax” to related financial datasets) enabling deeper and more intuitive exploration.