It’s a big role, responsible for transforming the government’s online systems and operations, but she said she’s excited to start.

Ms Andrews was named one of the world’s top 20 most influential people in digital government recently and one of the top 100 most influential women in Australia in 2014.

She is recognised for her work in open government, giving members of the public access to government processes and information, and as an advocate of free software.

She describes herself as a “data ninja,” determined to “transform public services through greater transparency, democratic engagement, citizen-centric design, open data, emerging technologies and real, pragmatic, actual innovation.”

She is the daughter of well-known locals, Touie and Denise Smith, whose forward-thinking opened her young mind to a very new world back then.

For the past year, Ms Andrews has been leading New Zealand’s Service Innovation Lab, aiming to give people easy access to public services. Now, she is back home, ready to take on her new role in the state government.

“My career in IT started with my Mum, who was a network and systems administrator when I was growing up. So, I started using computers when I was four,” Ms Andrews said.

This was an unusual concept at a time when computers weren’t common.

“[The computer back then] was capable of doing very little. It was before there was a user interface – something for you to look at – and before the mouse. There was only a keyboard and command prompt,” Ms Andrews said.

The photo here shows Pia, aged about five, looking at the home computer with her mother.

“It’s a very sweet photo of us, but it turns out the story behind the photo is that Mum had spent two days or so setting up the computer system for a business in Yass and, as she walked away for a minute, I managed to completely break it,” Ms Andrews said, laughing. “So, here we are, sitting at the computer and Mum is fixing whatever I broke.”

Owners of Warmington Electrical in Yass at the time, the Smiths were often ahead of the curve when it came to technology.

A few years prior, Touie had encouraged Denise to learn how to program microwaves and, foreseeing a technological revolution, encouraged her later on to learn how to use a computer.

“This was Dad’s business nous if we could call it that,” Ms Andrews said.

Mrs Smith, a studious woman, not only took over teaching the computer course she had first learned but also began teaching IT at Mt Carmel.

Like most at a young age, however, what young Pia wanted to learn was different from her parents. “I had zero interest in computers at school… I didn’t see it as a meaningful career,” she said.

Instead, she tried her hand at being a vet, but quickly realised she didn’t have the stomach for it and went onto university to study Chinese medicine.

Still not quite the career path for her, Ms Andrews ended up in IT. It was a “backup option,” she said, working as a tech support for an early internet service provider owned by James Packer. It was here, about the age of 21, that she saw how quickly technology was shaping our world. “I realised that people are only as free as the tools they use,” she said.

“If your technology doesn’t let you communicate with people; if your technology doesn’t allow you to be educated; if the technology you use doesn’t enable you to have opportunities, then you are disadvantaged from other people.

“So, I got really passionate about technology as a social enabler, because when technology is done well, it can actually create a better world for everybody.”

Ms Andrews eventually went onto work in the private sector, then in Senator Kate Lundy’s office as her IT policy advisor and finally, into the public service.

“I wanted to apply my skills for the public good,” she said. “I’ve been in it for almost 10 years now and I love it because when we do something well, it can help lots of people, everyone sometimes.”