8. Managing the change

We will move from a conventional planning framework to establish an architecture that will facilitate Ballarat’s migration to a new future. The specific change the Ballarat ICT 2030 strategy focuses on is captured in Table 9.

ICT 2030 paints a picture of rapid and sometimes uncertain change. Ballarat has been fortunate to have had entrepreneurial and forward looking local leadership that has guided policy and action. This needs to be continued and reinforced. The road ahead is an exciting one, but Ballarat cannot take its early advantage for granted. Increasingly other regions and towns are seeing the opportunities for development from ICT. Whilst Ballarat will gain from this, it is also sometimes in competition with these locations. Through a mix of mobilising disparate resources, promoting collaboration, identifying trends and initiating action, Ballarat ICT can make a real difference. But we will have to run fast just to keep up, and faster and smarter to stay ahead.

This research has identified the benefits of taking a staged view towards 2030 where well-defined targets are set and achieved by 2012 in the first two stages of the strategy. This will achieve a dynamic, innovative and export oriented ICT cluster and regional innovation system that will serve as a benchmark for other regional clusters nationally and internationally

The final stage looks towards 2030 and by the very nature of the rapidly changing global ICT environment and horizons is less precise and more speculative. It recognises that there is an increasing trend to pervasive and ubiquitous ICT with far greater diffusion and embedding of the technologies not only in devices, but within social activity and decision making. There will be a clear need for a process of revised planning and adjustment with particular opportunities for Ballarat’s major industries, including health, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing and education. The methodology used in this work and the structures set out here can form the basis for this process of revision and steering.