Judge's Discretionary Award

Recognised for its ability to deliver savings through Creative Commons

RFPMIX by Richard Best

Description and content sources

RFPMIX (http://www.rfpmix.info)

RFPMIX is a web-based service that enables individuals and organisations to build requests for proposals (RFPs), quickly and painlessly, for more efficient purchasing. It provides a form-based RFP builder to create quality first draft RFPs that can be exported to your word processing application. Draft RFPs cannot be seen by other site users and are regularly deleted from the site's database.

The RFPMIX templating engine accommodates:

• the purchase of services, goods, or goods and services, by both governmental and non-governmental purchasers;
• single supply arrangements as well as panel supply arrangements;
• procurements where short-listing is proposed as well as procurements where the purchasing agency or organisation wishes to proceed directly to a preferred respondent without short-listing;
• the insertion, where desired, of a requirement that organisations intending to submit proposals are to inform the purchasing agency or organisation of their intention to submit by a given date;
• the inclusion, where desired, of minimum mandatory requirements against which proposals will first be assessed before being able to pass to full evaluation;
• the ability to specify that pricing will be evaluated separately from other evaluation criteria; and procurements where draft contractual documentation is attached to the RFP as well as procurements where such documentation is not attached.

RFPMIX draws on request for proposal documents developed over time while I've been working for the Crown, principally the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) (that's the content being mashed up!). The RFPs I used as a base were taxpayer-funded through a combination of my and other advisors drafting them. Copyright in the source RFPs, as distinct literary works, is owned by the Crown.

I have obtained permission from DIA's Acting Chief Legal Advisor to use the base RFPs for the templating engine and to license the draft RFPs produced by RFPMIX on Creative Commons terms.

Judges’ comments

This entry was recognised for its ability to deliver savings by harnessing Creative Commons licensing. It is a very original idea using a business requirement and open goverment data to create a system that is actually useful and easy to use. It uses the source materials in an unexpected but ultimately clever way and, when polished, will provide real value to both businesses and government departments.

RFPMIX (http://www.rfpmix.info)