Page 3231 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 17 September 2013

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increase during the first six months of Canberra’s centenary year. These figures are influenced by visitation generated through investment in major event activity and investment in centenary-focused interstate marketing programs that provided compelling reasons to visit Canberra in our centenary year. This follows a period of significant investment in promoting Canberra to domestic audiences through the human brochure and centenary tactical campaigns, as well as investment in the Toulouse Lautrec and Turner from the Tate blockbuster exhibitions at the National Gallery of Australia.

These are some of the stand-alone highlights of our first year under the strategy. I would like to reflect on some of the deeper and longer term positioning work we have been doing, the policy directions that give the strategy its foundation to develop a 21st century digital city in which innovation and commercialisation thrive.

Prior to 2002 the economic strategy of the ACT government was based on a cargo-cult mentality—throw money at multinational companies and the economy will grow: $36 million in payroll tax waivers for EDS who relocated to Adelaide; $24 million for IBM, who never achieved the employment targets that the government hoped for; $10 million for Fujitsu; $8 million in cash for Impulse Airlines—remember them; and, of course, there was the V8 supercars fiasco. The Labor government stopped the cargo-cult mentality and decided to commit to developing an innovation ecosystem built on a research community that understands the need for business linkages and a busy community that can work with new ideas, the capital to fund commercialisation and the skilled talent to bring the system together.

The government’s first commitment was to the funding of National ICT Australia—NICTA. This was a major opportunity to establish a new building block for the innovation ecosystem in the ACT. It was an opportunity to link research and commercialisation in a new and fundamentally different way. The ANU, Australia’s premier research university, was a partner in this new approach. The ACT government has re-funded its founding member association with NICTA on two occasions. NICTA is now recognised internationally as a premier ICT research organisation, and its Canberra research laboratory is undertaking world-leading and world-renowned ICT research activities.

NICTA Canberra has now graduated over 300 PhD students. Its Canberra researchers, including the current crop of around 55 PhD students, are engaged in challenging collaborative projects across the country that are transforming major industry sectors. Indeed, NICTA’s Canberra researchers are working with the ACT government, ACT companies and other research groups at the ANU and the University of Canberra in areas including smart grid developments, solar energy output prediction, transport optimisation and social media monitoring. For example, NICTA has headquartered its e-health living laboratory at the University of Canberra’s faculty of health clinical teaching building. The lab aims to develop technology and business processes that will enable healthcare providers to deliver better services, increased access and open new opportunities for businesses.

NICTA in Canberra also hosts the Australian e-government cluster, a combined initiative of the ACT government and NICTA, together with support from the


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