The Australian Drupal community was proudly represented at the Public Sector Network NSW Government Innovation Week 2026, where four Drupal Certified Partners came together under a single Drupal banner to demonstrate the strength of open source collaboration.
With support from Linux Australia, the event showcased how competing organisations can work together to grow the Drupal ecosystem, advocate for open technologies, and strengthen relationships across government.
Collaboration in action
Representatives from Annex, Morpht, PreviousNext and Salsa Digital shared a single exhibition stand throughout the event, presenting Drupal as a community rather than promoting individual organisations.
It was a great example of one of open source's greatest strengths: organisations compete on expertise and delivery while collaborating to improve the platform and community that everyone benefits from.
The event also featured a panel discussion on digital innovation, where Julia Topliss, speaking in her capacity as Chair of DrupalSouth, represented the Drupal community and shared perspectives on building trusted, user-centred digital services for government.
Meeting the NSW Government community
The showcase attracted around 360 attendees, predominantly from NSW Government agencies.
Throughout the day the team had conversations with organisations already delivering services on Drupal, including several large organisations either currently managing significant multi-site legacy Drupal environments; or looking to move their digital sites over to Drupal.
There was also strong interest from organisations working within the NSW Government OneCX platform, with many attendees seeking advice on platform capabilities, content governance and opportunities to enhance their digital services.
Beyond technical conversations, the event also created new connections including discussions with organisations interested in supporting future DrupalSouth events and community initiatives.
Building assets for the community
One of the objectives of the Linux Australia funding was to create resources that continue delivering value after the event.
Several new community assets were produced, including:
- A reusable Drupal exhibition display that will be used at future community events.
- A Drupal showcase reel featuring case studies and key platform capabilities, displayed throughout the exhibition.
- Brochures and other print collateral
These resources will continue to evolve and be reused at future conferences and community activities.
Thank you
A sincere thank you to Linux Australia for supporting the initiative and recognising the value that open source communities bring to Australia's public sector.
Thank you also to the teams from Annex, Morpht, PreviousNext and Salsa Digital, who demonstrated that collaboration remains one of Drupal's greatest strengths.
Finally, thank you to everyone who visited the stand, attended the panel session or stopped to talk about Drupal. We look forward to continuing those conversations and seeing many of you again at future DrupalSouth events.
Open source works best when communities work together—and Public Sector Network NSW 2026 was another great example of that in action.
Interested in joining the next event?
This showcase was the first of what we hope will become a regular series of collaborative Drupal community appearances at government and industry events across Australia and New Zealand.
One of the strengths of the Drupal ecosystem is that we can work together to advocate for open source while continuing to compete on the quality of our services. By sharing exhibition space, knowledge and community resources, we can achieve far greater visibility than any one organisation could alone.
If you're a Drupal Certified Partner, or an organisation actively contributing to the Drupal community, we'd love to hear from you.
The best way to stay informed about future collaborative exhibition opportunities, community initiatives and planning discussions is to join the Australia & New Zealand channel in the Drupal Slack workspace:
#drupal-marketing-au-nz
This is where we'll share information about upcoming events, coordinate community participation, discuss ideas and invite organisations to get involved.
We look forward to welcoming more members of the community to future events as we continue promoting Drupal and open source across government and the wider public sector.
