Page 1483 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 2012
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Of course, it is also interesting to look at the impact that games have on the people who are playing them. I think that we need to do a lot more work on that. One of the other areas, of course, in which games are very important is military control systems. If you look at them, you can see that the two are merging. The cutting-edge developments in both areas are joining together.
The multimedia industry is very profitable, as all IT can be. Therefore, it is a very competitive industry. It can require some careful strategic planning for local operators to compete on the global market and, of course, some good luck. Clearly the continued success of AIE is beneficial to our local economy, local students and local profile. It is really an industry which could benefit from the ACT government’s transition to a cleaner, greener economy with proper strategic planning from both a government point of view and also, of course, from the point of view of the industry itself.
AIE was established in 1996. It has earned recognition as Australia’s leading educator for computer games development and 3D digital industry. It has grown significantly over the past 10 years. It now has campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. I, of course, tend to think of AIE particularly from its role as a business incubator. In my previous lifetime I worked for a company called AEIL, which was for a period of time a tenant of AIE when they briefly looked after the Downer business incubator. I must admit that I found the two similar sets of initials incredibly confusing.
But they have a wide suite of offerings, as Dr Bourke and Mr Seselja have talked about. I will not go through it at great length, because I am aware we are close to the end of time for today. What I would like to talk a bit more about is one of their positive things. They are one of Canberra’s most philanthropic companies. They recently donated $1.4 million to public schooling in the ACT. This is one of the largest, if not the largest, contribution to public education in the territory’s history. It is partly cash grants and partly AIE scholarships that will be split across the nine Canberra government colleges over the coming decade.
The awards are granted to students with interests in maths, information technology, entrepreneurship, digital media and graphic design. Both the previous speakers have spoken about the Canberra entrepreneurs, John De Margheriti and Steve Wang, who were the original founders of AIE. They, I believe, decided to make this donation after attending the Hawker college class of 1980 30th reunion celebrations, which is really, really great.
They graduated from the ACT public school system. They became innovators in the computer gaming and software industry and they said that they wanted to give back to the school that had helped them on the road to success. I quote what they said in the Canberra Times:
We decided that we really wanted to put something substantial back into the public education system so that we can encourage the kids coming through now to be able to tackle all their own impossibly wonderful projects and turn them into future careers,” Mr Wang said. “If even one student or group of students starts up a micro business that grows into something more, then our investment will have been worth every cent.
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