Harnessing our byte power – Room for a view

The Courier.  Wednesday April 19, 2006

Since 1994, when Ballarat launched its ICT strategy, IT2010, there had been much talk about turning Ballarat into an ICT Centre of excellence.

In those early days it was very much a matter of talking the talk, but sooner or later we were going to have to walk that talk.  I’m pleased to say that we are now walking it.

In the early development of IT2010, two outstanding projects came to life.  The first was the establishment of the University of Ballarat’s Technology Park.  Once established, two projects grew up on it.  First, what is now IBM Global Services and secondly the Greenhill Enterprise Centre, a technology incubator facility designed to grow new high-tech businesses.

IBM Global Services is to this day a state-of-the-art ICT facility in active service.

IBM has expanded its operation to include a software development centre in the heart of the University of Ballarat.  The Greenhill Enterprise has continued to evolve and has seen a myriad of high-tech businesses flow through its corridors.

Even now, it’s full house with burgeoning new IT businesses starting up and finding their feet.

Today, the Ballarat Technology Park is reaching near capacity in terms of building development and capacity with no less than seven high-tech centres and more than 300 people working there ranging from high-tech communications centres to innovative high-tech manufacturing and data processing.  With more projects likely to come on stream in the next 18 months, it’s likely that the hunt will be on for more space and more high-tech facilities.

And Ballarat seems to have been a breeding ground for ISPs and telecommunications providers.

Locally, NetConnect Communications, now Chariot Internet, a national ISP, was one of the first regional ISPs in Australia and Neighborhood Cable was one of the first regional cable providers.

Telstra Countrywide’s south-western headquarters are here and so is the home of one of the biggest health infrastructure projects in the region, GRAHNet, tasked with connecting up the health services across western Victoria.

But it’s not just the big end of the ICT business that has been in our focus.  cBallarat has been the trustee of the IT2010 since its inception.

And what many people in Ballarat are probably unaware of is that from 1994 there has been a steady growth of small local ICT businesses who are starting to make their mark on the world.  A staggering 80-plus ICT or ICT-related businesses operate in the region.  Many have developed highly-innovative and ground-breaking technologies.

So it’s a bit of a concern that more is not known about these companies and that, from cBallarat’s view, the growth of these companies individually, has not been more significant.

But we have learned from the more-traditional industries.  Manufacturing has traditionally been the backbone of Ballarat’s economy and the inter-relationship between manufacturing companies here has been a part of how they have survived in the national and global markets. 

After some months of developing a proposal, late last year John Brumby, the State and Regional Development Minister, announced the grant of funding for the first stage of the of the Ballarat ICT Clusters Project, which is now nearly complete.

The project started with a survey, the findings of which are now published at jed.cecc.com.au/clients/bict_new as well as profiles of some of the ground-breaking businesses that are operating in this region.

The survey was conducted by the university’s Centre for Electronic Commerce and Communications.

It outlined things that many of us knew.  While we had a thriving ICT industry made up of lots of small operations, they were generally aware that they did not profile themselves well. 

Once they reached a certain size, many tended to stay that size.  Few attempted to tackle contracts beyond their own individual capacities.  Even fewer collaborated.  With these and other factors, there needed to be a circuit breaker to take these businesses to another stage.

The CECC is finalising a business plan that will see the setting up of a vehicle to enable the ICT Cluster and help the ICT businesses develop collaborations, find bigger and more lucrative contracts and assist in raising their profiles and capabilities, locally, nationally and globally.

Already, overseas delegations we have been involved with, especially those to India, have resulted in potential collaborative relationships that attack very new markets.

There are some simple outcomes that we’re looking for; increased income and profits for local ICT players, increased employment in that sector and a broadening of the ICT skillsets that will allow greater exportability of our home grown products and services.

The mayor, David Vendy, coined the phrase “Silicon Gully” some years ago in reference to what Ballarat might become over time.  We’re certainly starting to look like it.