cBallarat A Report Card
myballarat Magazine, November 2006
ICT in Ballarat – it’s been a focus since 1994. With progressive waves of projects and initiatives that have come through out region over the years, it’s hard to assess just how far we’ve come when you’re on the front line. This has very much been the case for the Board and executive members of cBallarat, the region’s peak strategic ICT body, tasked with the responsibility of setting the vision and direction of ICT development and integration for the community and businesses of Ballarat.
cBallarat was originally set up in 2001 with a specific mandate of managing and coordinating the State Government initiated Televillage projects. These projects included the setting up of the Telecommunity Centres in places such as Wendouree West, Sebastopol and Learmonth, the running of eCommerce Road Shows and the development of ICT based business networks and community based ICT facilities. Since then, and in close partnership with Council, it has played a leading hand in the redevelopment of the IT2010 ICT strategy for Ballarat, the establishment of the Collaborative Optical Leading Test Bed, the development of the Ballarat ICT Cluster, ICT based trade missions to India, submissions to Federal Government regarding national ICT policy and a major role in the establishment of the national Community Geographic Domain Name regime across Australia.
2006 has been a threshold year for cBallarat with its think-tank in overdrive. It was decided late last year that not everything could be achieved given the plethora of new opportunities and potential new ICT based projects and initiatives being spun out in the region. So working groups were set up and specific project foci were set. How did we do? Here’s a report card on some of the major activities for the year.
Marketing and public relations
One of the criticisms of cBallarat has been that whilst the activity levels were high, both the organisation and its activities had a low profile. This year more than any there has been an attempt to ensure that not only were the activity levels maintained but that the profiles were raised and the general community more informed. Key to this strategy has been the securing of regular columns in the Courier. All board members have had a nad in contributing to a steady stream of articles ranging from updates on projects like the ballarat.vic.au portal to information and explanations about new technology such as IPv6 and its impending impact on Australia.
cBallarat has also had an increasing role as a media authority and reference in relation to the developments of ICT related matters locally, nationally and internationally, ranging from the latest Federal Government telecommunications initiatives to local broadband developments and new mobile technologies.
We have also introduced business briefings into our profiling activities, the most visible of which has been the re-introduction of the Ballarat IT Specialists (BITs) Breakfast Series. Other briefings have included those with respect to the coming Trade Mission to India and the up and coming ICT Listening Forum (see below).
Internationally, we have also had good representation at ICT Expos and conferences in India, especially Chennai, where as Chair of cBallarat and CEO of Council, I was able to present on Ballarat’s ICT achievements and opportunities to several international audiences.
Ballarat.vic.au
Since 2002 cBallarat has been involved with the development of the National Community Geographic Domains (CGDN) scheme. In 2002, cBallarat wrote a submission to the .Au Domains Authority (AuDA) advocating the introduction of a strictly regulated regime that would allow groups representative of a community to apply for what is effectively an Internet post code. Bathurst made a similar submission.
The Community Geographic Domain Names system came online for the nation in July. However, because of cBallarat’s involvement from the beginning, cBallarat, as the representative community organisation for Ballarat, was awarded a two year licence for the domain “ballarat.vic.au” in March.
No time was wasted with the early acquisition. With the assistance of Council, an industrial grade server was commissioned and built. When asked, the team at Neighborhood Cable had no hesitation in offering hosting space and connectivity as part of a sponsorship package for the project.
The server has been open for business for the Ballarat community since May. Non-profit and community groups now have a permanent place they can call home on the ‘Net with a suite of online facilities, ranging from online content management systems, spam protected email, chat rooms, calendars, e-newsletters and membership sections. There is no cost to community groups for these facilities. The costs have been kept down by extensive deployment of open source based systems and plug-ins.
The server also houses the Big Ballarat List, an Internet Directory that allows anyone (including businesses) in Ballarat with a website to list their details and information.
Ballarat has been involved in no less than three launch events, related to the CGDN regime. The first, here in Ballarat, celebrated the launch of the community facility. The second, the national launch, occurred in Sydney and we played an integral part in showcasing the regime and our involvement in its development. The third was the State launch of the regime and again it was a chance to cement Ballarat’s leadership in the field.
Community and non-profit groups, sports clubs, special interest societies; they are all coming on board. For the latest listing visit http://www.ballarat.vic.au
The Ambassadors Program
As Ballarat has developed, so has the impetus to ensure that young people in Ballarat are fully engaged and have career pathways and opportunities right here in Ballarat. TRhis is never an easy issue in regional Australia but there are many initiatives in Ballarat tackling this challenge.
For cBallarat’s part the answer is using ICT to bridge the gap between employers and young people. Online communications and mobile telephony is engrained within the cultures of the younger generations.
cBallarat’s Ambassadors program has embraced this opportunity and giving employers and businesses new ways of communicating with young people, whilst at the same time giving people a step up in their experiences and training.
An overarching project known as The Ballarat RealTime yLab has been developed. The White Paper on this project has been well received by education and business professionals. The Realtime yLab concept will be refined and implemented in a number of different scenarios in this last quarter of 2006.
In the meantime, a pilot sub-project under the yLab initiative is about to go live. In conjunction with Lead On Ballarat, young people will be trained up in the use and deployment of the online systems of the ballarat.vic.au project. They will be teamed up with community and non-profit groups to assist them in developing skills and online communications capabilities so that they can make effective use of the ‘Net to extend the communications capabilities of their groups.
In many cases, these young people will be utilising skills and capabilities they either did not know they had or did not know were valued and useful. In deploying these skills with real-time organisations, it is hoped that they will refine and further develop these skills in a way that will add clear value to their employment and skills prospects.
By Christmas, we anticipate having three or four pilot groups working actively throughout Ballarat and providing a valuable lead into the main project thrust of the Realtime yLab.
Broadband and the Planning Regulations
One of the difficulties faced by infrastructure providers in any regional area is the retro fitting of broadband and communications infrastructure into new houses and estates. In addition to the logistical difficulties and inconvenience, reprofitting infrastructure is a very costly exercise.
Earlier this year cBallarat embarked on a series of consultations with stakeholders ranging from building developers to telecommunications companies to discuss how all new developments in Ballarat could accommodate the easy rollout of broadband infrastructure as and when it is available.
The process was complex and many balances had to be found between the convenience of having infrastructure automatically rolled out and the economic realities of what is feasible. A working model was finally agreed upon involving the rolling out of 50mm conduit from the edge of the development into every subdivided plot in all new estates, whether residential or commercial. The rolling out of the conduit will be at the developer’s expense, but will thereafter fall under the control of Council. In this way, when a provider wishes to gain access to the conduit, Council has control over the nature of the rollout and the business plan that needs to be developed to ensure that a minimum level of broadband provision is undertaken.
It is believed that the City of Ballarat is one of the first regional councils to take such measures to ensure that broadband infrastructure is accommodated, as of right, in all new estates.
The Wired House
The Wired House project has perhaps been one of the most difficult conceptual processes to tie down. The original concept was to develop a house that contained the latest commercially available ICT componentry. Themes included “live” houses that would communicate and interact with residents wherever they were located, to smart monitoring systems that would track the vital signs of elderly residents on a 24/7 basis.
The focus has sharpened to one very current aspect – environmental efficiency. So the question has been posed – how do we utilise and incorporate relevant ICT into a state of the art home to enhance and innovate in the area of environmental efficiency? Targets include reductions in fuel consumption, preservation and recycling of water, harnessing natural energy sources such as the sun.
Work is now well under way in identifying appropriate and innovative technologies and we will soon be assessing the savings against the costs of incorporating such technologies into a new home. What we have found is that there has never been a more critical time to look at the issues of not just a Wired House, but a Green Wired House. Our own timeline for getting a Green Wired Show Home on the way is tentatively the first quarter of 2007. Planning has begun in earnest and the Working Group, made up of developers and technology providers as well as contractors and government departments, will be brought together in earnest in the next few weeks.
The Ballarat ICT Cluster
There are a staggering 60-70 ICT businesses in the Ballarat region. Many of them have developed unique intellectual property and/or/skills. But few of them have the scale or mass to attack progressively larger markets. At the other end of the scale we have some very successful larger ICT businesses that have had a profound impact on the ICT landscape in Ballarat. They include IBM, Neighborhood Cable, Telstra and Chariot Internet (who merged successful homegrown ISP, NetConnect Communications into their operations).
The task of the Ballarat ICT Cluster project has been to bring together both small and large ICT organisations in Ballarat and provide a binding process which, collectively, will being greater mass and focus on our ICT industry and capabilities.
The first stage in the project, entailed the surveying of ICT based businesses and thereafter, the development of a business plan and strategy to move ICT forward in Ballarat.
The first stage was very successful. The successful contractors who worked through these processes were the Centre for eCommerce and Communications (CECC), a unit of the University of Ballarat. The results of the surveys produced some very clear patterns in respect of which the local ICT Industry faced. The task of drawing out the plan for the way forward was then jointly in the hands of the board of cBallarat and the CECC. That plan was accepted by the State Government and the project was awarded second stage funding. In this stage, an ICT Cluster facilitation manager has been appointed through an open tender process. Not surprisingly, the CECC won this tender.
The progress to date is comprehensively recorded on the website of the Ballarat ICT cluster, which can be found at http://jed.cecc.com.au/clients/bict_new
The results of the survey from the first stage of the project did not sit idle in the drawers of the board members’ filing cabinets. ICT businesses said that they were bad at marketing. But they also said that they wanted more of the local market. They said that they had world class products but didn’t know how to get them “out there”.
At the time of writing, cBallarat has organised a “Listening Forum” for small businesses in Ballarat, to let them tell cBallarat about the frustrations and challenges faced by local business in integrating ICT into their operations. ICT companies have specifically been excluded from the forum. We want demand side businesses to speak openly and freely. But we will take a report back to the Cluster and we will then run a mini ICT expo which local ICT businesses can answer the challenge and provide a show case for their capabilities and expertise to the local market.
As far as the international marketplace is concerned, Council has worked long and hard to develop good and useful relationships with India for many years. The turning point has come this year with Council teaming up with the Confederation of Indian Industry, arguably the biggest industry association in the World. The City is a partner in the CII’s Global Summit for Small Businesses in Delhi in November. Council has, in conjunction with fun ding commitments from MultiMedia Victoria, organised a trade delegation to the Summit, at which the CII will work with Council to secure potential deals, partnerships and/or joint venture agreements with the Indian market. Council is realistic about the fact that there is much work to be done, but no other regional city has ever been given such status in any of the CII’s international projects and we are confident of their ability to assist in finding and facilitating international business deals in India.
ICT 2030
cBallarat has long been anxious about a continued 360 degree focus on the high level integration of ICT in all levels of community across the Ballarat region. Every now and then, it becomes clear how far we have come. But there is still much to be done. In 1994, with finding from the Premier’s department, cBallarat was awarded funding to develop the IT2010 Strategy, which produced the settlement of IBM as a permanent part of the ICT landscape in Ballarat, and resulted in the setting up of the University of Ballarat’s Technology Park.
When it started there was the Greenhill Enterprise Centre and IBM. Now, a community of 600+ people work at the Technology Park and it continues to expand.
We are not 12 years since the original plan and cBallarat with the Council has undertaken a review and re-development of the IT2010 strategy. It is now called the ICT2030 strategy and the University of Ballarat has been tasked with leading the review, producing the research and developing the components for the strategy, with cBallarat carrying the responsibility carrying the responsibility of guide and trustee for the community.
There are many board meetings in which the cBallarat board has felt that it was spinning its wheels and that much more progress needed to be made. They are right on the latter count. But as chair I would commend all of the Board members on their efforts and determination to contribute to Ballarat’s future.
This report card highlights only the major projects and activities of cBallarat. As chair, I reflect on the fact that there are many things we are still aiming to achieve, but I think that so far, our report card reads well. There is much more to be done, but also, much already done.
Richard Hancock
cBallarat Chair
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