Friday, 5 February 2016

Launching the NBN

Something like 5 years ago, our national government, then run by Julia Gillard, embarked on a program to network the nation with high-speed broadband, a very expensive proposition. Interestingly, Armidale has become the first location in Australia where the National Broadband Network (NBN) has been completed and all telephony is internet based (there is no copper wire any more) and the only internet connection is broadband ... with an 80% take-up rate by businesses, institutions, governments and households.

Given that we're the first cab of the rank, we had a big ceremony in town today to declare the NBN completed. The guests included local politicians (Barnaby Joyce, National Party, Federal Parliament, Minister for Agriculture; Adam Marshall, National Party, State Parliament); The University of New England's Vice Chancellor and some of her senior staff; all members of city council, including the mayor, Herman Beyersdorf; heads of council departments; most members of the Chamber of Commerce; leading business-people; members of the Digital Economy Implementation Group (DEIG); organiser of Armidale's TechFest; ... and me. Since we were celebrating the city's future, I thought I'd turn up appropriately dressed in my Google T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Alas, I was the only one thus attired, except for the computer staff of a local internet business - Whitehack - who wore the expected jeans and t-shirt. The event was actually held on Whitehack's business premises in one of our industrial estates and went on for two hours of speech giving and valuable networking, not to forget some delicious NBN cake and drinks.

Also in attendance were several TV crews, and other journalists. I took the following photos with my mobile phone, so they're probably not the best. Here's Barnaby making the main speech.


And Herman was the second cab off the rank.


Both these gentlemen then cut the official NBN cake


And later they posed with other leading people in the community. Apart from Barnaby and Herman (an odd duo because the former is a national (= rural) MHR and potential leader of his party and therefore deputy Prime Minister; while Herman is much more Associated with the opposition Australian Labor Party), the others in this photo are (from L to R) Adrian Wood who runs Whitehack, Adam Marshall, and Alun Davies - a close friend I often meet for coffee and discussion about how to reconstruct Armidale in the image of Silicon Valley. In short, we want our community to become risk seeking, networked, mutually assisting one another in business management, imaginative and creative, future focused, interested in research and development, knowledgeable, and so on.


As the result of my discussions, we're teeing up a coffee session next week including Alun, me, an energetic future oriented member of council, and a local businessman to see how best to achieve a transformative community. For example, I am trying to set up a workshop event at the coming TechFest to discuss how best to set up a local venture capital fund for start-up enterprises.

And, one more thing. On the 10th of February five days from now I and my colleagues on the DEIG who entered Armidale for the Intelligent Community of the Year award will know if we made the cut of the final 7. Actually, make that the 11th Australian time, but the 10th in New York from where the competition is run. If we make this cut and join the world's elite communities I might make it to the US for the third time in 2016 to help promote Armidale's case! So, wish us success.

AS

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