ACT Government, Health and University delegates learnt more about the National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout in a visit to Armidale last week with Darren Rudd of NBNCo.
Armidale Dumaresq Council (ADC) was the first stop where General Manager Shane Burns gave an overview of the strong relationship between ADC and NBNCo, and what has been learned by both parties in implementing the high speed internet capabilities for our community and Local Government.
Sam Austrin-Miner of Attentive Consulting followed, with an overview of the draft Armidale Digital Economy Strategy, which could be worth as much as $108 million per annum to the local economy.
Mr Austrin-Miner described the Digital Economy and its benefits to society, not just businesses and government. A good example is the health sector and the impact of an ageing population. To address improvements, home health care is set to use more powerful internet as a means of medical care, including consultation and physiotherapy exercise.
Mr Austrin-Miner also spoke about other sectors of the economy, such as education, retail, financial services, teleworking and government services, which are rapidly transforming business practice.
The Digital Local Government Program was launched on November 2. The new service provides people with the capability of contacting Council online via a Video-Call / Booking system. An exciting film featuring Armidale has been made by Attentive Consulting, which illustrates the new video calling facility now available. Instead of organising a meeting at Council with your architect, for example, you could arrange a three-way video conference call, thereby saving time and money.
“The research in Armidale indicates that as many as 78 per cent of businesses would like to engage with Councils online. The Video-Call/Booking solution provides just one mechanism to do that,” said Mr Austrin-Miner.
The visiting delegation went on to tour the Armidale Digital Hub, where Leah Morrison explained the popularity of the sessions for home internet users, including Connection to the NBN, Mobile Computing, Skype and Photo Editing.
Following Ms Morrison, Elizabeth Egan of the Armidale Business Chamber presented an overview of the Digital Enterprise Program. These sessions have covered hot topics for business and the NBN, including Social Media, Website Success, Teleworking and Cloud Computing.
“The amazing thing is that all these resources are being offered for free, so the community has nothing to lose in visiting as many of these sessions as possible,” said Cr Jim Maher. “I urge everyone to take advantage.”
Armidale is set to be the first city in Australia to be fully connected to the NBN. With delegates from Federal and ACT Governments touring our city and the University of New England, it shows that Armidale is certainly in the national spotlight with the current work of the NBN rollout.
