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outh Australia plans to introduce itself to the world as an “Information Economy” success story, and it has just under a year in which to put the necessary pieces in place. Adelaide, the Australian state’s capital city, will be the site of the 2002 WITSA World Congress, a biennial conference of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (www.witsa.org). (WITSA is a consortium of 41 information technology industry associations worldwide. Its role is to develop public policies of concern to information industries and to present these policies to governments and relevant international organizations. The 2000 World Congress was held last June in Taipei, Taiwan.)
Regardless of the WITSA meeting, the South Australian state government takes quite seriously its goal of being an information-age model for other locations and regions to emulate as they seek to put in place a framework for competing in the world economy of the future. It intends to be one of the world’s leading “connected communities” by the time the WITSA conference convenes Feb. 27, 2002. To meet that goal, the government of Premier John Olsen has unveiled a blueprint document called Information Economy 2002: Delivering the Future, the gist of which is a set of 21 initiatives for becoming a truly information-enabled economy. The initiatives are listed in the adjacent box.
Defining the New Economy
The document defines the information economy as “the global economy that has emerged from the relatively newly acquired ability to access information from anywhere to anywhere at any time. In reality, it goes far beyond a simple economic state to encapsulate all aspects of everyday life in the year 2000 — from government to big business to the home.” New approaches to communication and interaction will impact all facets of society, and they will create new opportunities for its members, the report predicts. “For South Australia, the main issue is how this opportunity will be exploited to secure a solid future for the State and all its citizens,” it asserts. “The South Australia of the 21st century will be a leading information-enabled community in a world where intellectual capital is the currency of the day.”
“We want to eliminate the gap between the information rich and the information poor,” noted Olsen at the official introduction of Information Economy 2002. “We will give every South Australian, on an opt-in basis, their own e-mail address, open up local community Internet awareness to improve everyone’s online skills and help make the technology more accessible at community facilities such as schools and libraries.” The 21 initiatives outlined in the document were designed to facilitate connectivity among individuals, businesses and communities — and between these parties in South Australia and the world, added Olsen.
Information Economy 2002 is expansive in its scope. Rather than simply list objectives the state hopes to achieve in the next year, it acknowledges and builds on efforts already under way. These include South Australia’s “Networks for You” program, which provides Internet access centers in regional and rural areas; “Talking Point,” an online forum for discussions of public issues and debates; Pathway SA, a statewide Internet backbone network; sa.edu, which connects every school in the state to the Internet with secure, high-speed services; electronic procurement initiatives; and Business Vision 2010, a business community effort that will work closely with those implementing Information Economy 2002 initiatives.
A Key Role for the State
The report calls on the state to support the initiatives by expediting infrastructure projects — electronic and otherwise — on which the new economy is to be based. “South Australia’s prospects for capturing new industry activity revolve around leveraging the state’s existing investment in research and development and skills, using creativity in aligning old and new activities and plugging the gaps in capabilities and infrastructure necessary to support an innovative and entrepreneurial economy,” reads a passage.
“This presents a twofold challenge,” it goes on to say. “First is the challenge to ensure that the state’s basic telecommunications, transport and logistics infrastructure is continually renewed and enhanced to standards of world competitiveness as a platform for business and community activity. Second is to ensure investment in public projects that will enhance the research, financial and support services infrastructure needed to support business innovation and the rapid penetration and beneficial use of new online applications and services.”
The initiatives under way as prescribed in Information Economy 2002 will stay on track and meet its objectives if they are guided by four touchstones, or themes. They are:
- Engagement and participation. The result will encourage and facilitate participation in the connected community by all sections of the community.
- Capturing attention. Successful completion of the initiatives will significantly raise South Australia’s stature as a hot spot in the global information economy, which means being a center of activities and talent to which people want to connect, the report states.
- Stimulating imagination. Another result should be the emergence of a culture of innovation and confidence in South Australian talent and social capital.
- Connecting people. The hope here is to create a truly connected community, “a vibrant node in a worldwide web of networked communities and borderless commerce.”
Power to the People
Dr. Terry Cutler, managing director of the Cutler Co. (www.cutlerco.com.au) and a key consultant on the Information Economy 2002 project, put it this way in a commencement address at the University of Adelaide in April 2000: “People flows have become more important than capital flows or natural resources. Capital and corporate investment will flow to and will co-locate with the premiere people communities of the world, the hot spots for smarts, not to locations for cheap labor or cheap electricity as in the past. Government investment attraction strategies revolving around bricks and mortar must be replaced by strategies based on people policies and people attraction. Being Net-centric is to be people-centric.”
Another tool for keeping the effort on track is an initial framework of measures for gauging progress. The measures can and should be refined in subsequent years to enable the government to review the effectiveness of policies and programs. Measures, indicated here in parentheses, listed in Information Economy 2002 are applied to such information economy indicators as knowledge generation and research capabilities (research grants and funding, patents and trademarks), innovation and enterprise (industry R&D, new enterprise formation, quality of investors and capitalization of new stocks), people resources (education and skills, global networks and connections and mobility), social capital (digital literacy, civic participation and virtual communities), e-trade and e-commerce (business-to-business transactions, trade balances and global customers), creative and cultural infrastructure (digital channels, content creation and production) and several others.
“Virtually all Australian states have developed strategies over the years, but some of these are nearing the end of their shelf lives,” says Cutler. “Information Economy 2002 is the most ambitious and comprehensive plan with a wider focus than some of the more narrow IT and telecom sector development plans in other areas.”
