Senator the Hon Helen Coonan
Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts
Technology and Community
Microsoft Unlimited Potential Conference
Sydney
Tuesday 13 December 2005
Thank you Steve [Steve Vamos, Vice President, Microsoft Australia and New Zealand]
Good morning I am very pleased to be here today for the launch of the Unlimited Potential portal.
Community
There was a time not so long ago that the word ‘community’ was a reference to the town we grew up in or the neighbourhood we lived in.
Modern communications technology means community is now a much more fluid concept.
While we all are still part of our local community, more than likely we are also part of a global community of ideas facilitated by a computer and an Internet connection.
We can do business in an instant, purchase goods from stores around the world, share our personal experiences and thoughts on web-logs and digest news from across the globe that is constantly updated.
The tyranny of distance is being overcome by technology. Isolation is now an issue of access to technology rather than geographical location.
This isolation is not simply an issue for people living in the remotest parts of the world or Australia, lack of access to life-changing and enabling technologies can equally affect people living in our largest cities.
Cost, geography and overcoming problems in rolling out new technologies can all affect how many people can access computers and the Internet.
Governments, business and the wider community need to work together to bridge these gaps in access and ensure that all Australians are effective users of technology.
Internet use in Australia
Information and communications technology — ICT – impacts the way society and the economy interact.
Access to high-speed broadband and Internet use continues to grow exponentially as the economic and social gains from their use become better understood.
67 per cent of people aged 14 years and over in Australia used the Internet in April 2005 and of those users, 87 per cent accessed the Internet from home.
The percentage of home Internet users using broadband also grew from 5 per cent in June 2001 to a very healthy 57 per cent in July 2005. We now have over 2 million broadband subscribers in Australia and are in the top 10 for the OECD in terms of rate of take-up of broadband.
Clearly, Australians are keen adopters of technology and all it offers.
Most Australians have forgotten what life was like before the Internet – whether it’s shopping, banking, keeping in touch with friends and family, looking for a house, applying for a job or investigating Government services – its all quicker, easier and more accessible with the advent of the World Wide Web.
Social and community benefits of ICT
The Australian Government is committed to policy and program initiatives which embrace the importance of working with communities and businesses to encourage building ICT capacity.
Enhancing a community’s capacity to access and utilise ICT effectively not only has a positive economic impact by providing jobs, business opportunities and productivity gains, it also can deliver significant social benefits.
People can build and strengthen personal and professional networks; they can reach out and connect to people with similar challenges or circumstances; and they can develop new skills and access information on any subject of interest to them.
Improving access to broadband will help transform the economic and social activity of a community and it is critical that no one is left behind.
The Government’s $1.1 billion Connect Australia package announced this year will go a long way to delivering our vision for a digitally capable and inclusive Australia.
The major element of this package – the $878 Broadband Connect program - will deliver improved access to affordable broadband connections in rural, regional and remote areas and build on the success of the Government’s $160 million HiBIS program.
There are already some early indications that access to broadband and the Internet more broadly is having a dramatic impact on the lives of people living in remote parts of Australia.
A recent ABS report into Farm use of ICT showed that the more remote a farm was, the more likely it was to be connected to the Internet. For example, 80 per cent of farms in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia used the Internet daily as part of their business operations.
As the bandwidth increases, so do the services. While sending e-mail and checking the weather might be okay over narrowband, plugging into sophisticated supply chain software or allowing the kids to study at home in an interactive online environment requires far greater bandwidth.
The social and economic importance of affordable broadband connections in remote areas is abundantly clear.
When Broadband Connect commences on January 1 it will subsidise the cost of broadband services to consumers in regional Australia and stimulate the development of new, sustainable broadband infrastructure.
Our $113 million Clever Networks program will rollout new broadband networks for innovative applications to improve the delivery of health, education and other essential services.
I recently released a discussion paper on these programs to look at how they might be designed and delivered to maximise the impact on more remote communities.
The Government has supported hundreds of ICT projects in regional, rural and remote communities across Australia since we started the Telstra privatisation process in 1997.
The $320 million Networking the Nation program provided public Internet access centres, training and awareness programs, lower cost private Internet access, communication infrastructure, video conferencing, websites and online services.
Even very simply innovations such as video conferencing and email have enabled families to stay in touch with each other over long distances.
I recently released a report titled The Role of ICT in Building Communities and Social Capital which outlined the potential for the Internet to play a role in building and strengthening communities.
This report demonstrated that ICT has a significant role to play in building social capital and community development.
It also concluded that telecommunications should be considered one of the critical elements of the underlying community infrastructure.
One example outlined in the report, the Queensland Rural Women’s Network, used technology to overcome the tyranny of distance for women living in remote areas.
The project includes a partnership with a training provider, BridgeIT, which is helping people living in remote and rural areas of Queensland build ICT skills.
The training has helped women overcome difficulties with communication in remote areas including the fear of technology. It has also raised the status of rural women; encouraged country and city relationship building; and service provision between government agencies and private organisations.
Backing Indigenous ability
Another instance of how ICT plays a role in building social capital is the example of the Deadly Mob project, based at the Gap Youth Centre in Alice Springs.
This project is encouraging an online community of Indigenous young people to actively express their views, hopes and talents online. Using a website and discussion lists the project has created online opportunities for young Indigenous people.
Using strong role models and mentors, it helps young people participate in community development and connect with each other and the wider world.
Through Deadly Mail they use visual and audio tools to communicate. This is crucial in an environment where English is not always the first language, and text-based material can be isolating and a barrier. Instead they use humour and an informal style to communicate and the project has been a great success.
I am excited by the potential of ICT to transform remote indigenous communities and I am particularly pleased as Minister to be making a real difference through the Government’s new $90 million Backing Indigenous Ability program.
This program will target the deficiencies in communications and IT services in remote Indigenous communities, including:
- Rolling-out shared community phones to around 190 remote Indigenous communities;
- creating public Internet access hubs in communities;
- encouraging government agencies and public Internet access centres to provide access to videoconferencing services; and
- supporting the use of ICT in these communities through appropriate training, skills development, information provision and the development of culturally-relevant and appropriate content.
Hole in the wall
The potential of this generation of young people to interact and engage with ICT is enormous.
During a recent trip to India I was amazed to discover that this potential may exist even when a child has no training or even any previous interaction with computers.
India ’s chief scientist, Dr Sugata Mitra, has received global attention for his “hole in the wall” experiments which he hopes will make millions of disadvantaged Indian children computer literate.
The hole in the wall experiments install a robust computer kiosk in a village, which provides a standard desktop and browsing capabilities.
No instruction or supervision is provided. The theory, which has now been proven, is that unsupervised groups of children in a shared open space will learn and teach each other.
Dr Mitra’s research has shown that this self instruction is as effective as traditional classroom instruction and the children are able to learn to use computers and the Internet on their own, regardless of their background.
Children’s desire to learn, their curiosity and peer interaction drives them to explore and learn.
Young children in these urban and rural slums, where this system has been set up, show time and again that they can be browsing the internet within minutes of seeing a computer for the first time.
I am very keen to explore whether this system could be of value in underprivileged communities in Australia and particularly remote indigenous communities.
Social coalition and corporate responsibility
This sort of example really brings home the unlimited potential of ICT. But as I said earlier, bringing about social change using ICT as a catalyst requires a combined effort from all participants in the Information Economy.
The Unlimited Potential program is a fantastic example of a social coalition which has formed to improve Internet access and training for disadvantaged parts of our community.
The concept of a social coalition recognises the social challenges of a nation may not be best solved by individuals acting alone, or indeed through government, businesses or welfare organisations working separately.
Rather it highlights the strength of these elements coming together, in various alliances, in our communities.
In launching the Unlimited Potential program last year with Bill Gates, the Prime Minister, John Howard, emphasised the importance of the social coalition stating:
“…when they each in their own way contribute their special assets to the solution of a problem, societies can get some remarkable outcomes”.
The Unlimited Potential program illustrates how local partnerships between community groups and business can create affordable opportunities for local people to contribute to increased social cohesion, tolerance, and understanding.
And Microsoft deserves credit not only for initiating this program – but should be congratulated for the tangible benefits it is delivering.
Launch of the unlimited potential portal
I am pleased today to launch the Unlimited Potential Community Portal which will help support the program’s goals to foster collaboration and a sense of community.
The portal contains links to news and events happening in the Unlimited Potential community, as well as research materials, case studies and projects that centres can draw on to help implement their individual projects in their local environments.
Conclusion
The Government’s vision is for a nation with the capability to apply ICT across the economy to foster innovation and social wellbeing. Through the participation of individuals, community, business and governments we can achieve this goal.
Microsoft’s commitment to the Unlimited Potential program represents a positive and collaborative way forward in achieving ICT access and capability to all Australians.
I now have great pleasure in launching the Unlimited Potential portal.
Thank you.