Page 512 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 March 2014
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Digital Canberra supports commitments aimed to diversify and grow Canberra’s economic base and provide better government services across access through on-line delivery. It aims to promote Canberra as a city of digital opportunity, create digital networks and partnerships and accelerate the digital economy. The five key priority digital Canberra areas are the smart city, a digital economy, a connected community, open government and digital services. There are five priority projects to initiate and promote digital Canberra, the first one being free wi-fi; the second, the Garema Place digital space; the third one, the STEM internships, with an ICT focus; digital city capacity-building workshops in partnership with the Canberra Business Council; and the innovation pitch panel.
The digital Canberra action plan is the road map of how we are going to accelerate business engagement, promote Canberra as a modern, dynamic digital city, use technology to be more open in government and allow access to government data to give citizens greater choice in how and when they use services and to be more innovative in how we engage the community and local small businesses. This action plan is backed by a $4 million investment which shows how we are going to accelerate our engagement with business, with the digital economy, and help business access new customers and markets.
In order to shape this vision and understanding of digital Canberra, I hosted an industry digital round table in July 2013 to facilitate discussion on key ideas, issues, challenges and opportunities for articulating a framework for digital Canberra for the benefit of the ACT. I wanted to get a clear picture of how government, business and the community could work together to drive improvements in innovation and services, using the latest thinking around digital technology.
We know quite a bit from some of the work that has been done. Deloitte Access Economics in April 2013 found that Australian small businesses with high digital engagement are twice as likely to be growing revenue, twice as likely to earn twice as much revenue per employee and are four times more likely to be hiring more staff.
To help boost ACT business engagement with the digital agenda, we are partnering with business and the Canberra Business Council this year to conduct ICT capacity-building workshops, with top-rated vendors, SMEs and not-for-profits. These workshops will be facilitated by the ACT government in partnership with the Canberra Business Council. They really are to drive the increased use of technology, to provide guidance on software and support, to increase a business’s comfort with technology, to access training and advice, to improve dealings with new customers and new customer experience, and to facilitate partnerships between vendors and business.
So this is a very exciting action plan that the government is keen to really progress this year. We have been working through the Minister for Economic Development and the Chief Minister’s Directorate to really get some tangible projects that we can push this year and help support some of the innovative IT and technology sectors here in the ACT. They are not just doing amazing things here; they are exporting and getting our name known all over the world. It is a very, I think, exciting opportunity,
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