Strategic Vision for the Australian ICT Sector

The National ICT Industry Alliance (NICTIA) released "A 10 year Strategic Vision for the Australian Information and Communications Technology Sector" on Monday. There are some thoughts on how to do some of this in my "Building Arcadia - Emulating Cambridge's High Technology Success". For the NICTIA report there is a media release and eight page summary. from NICTIA and the full twenty four page report is available from the ACS.

This got a reasonable amount of media coverage, but many in the ICT business may not have seen the details. Note that, despite the similarity of acronyms, NICTIA is different to NICTA (National ICT Australia).

The twelve vision statements from NICTIA are:

Vision Statement 1 - National 10 Year Strategy

Australia to have a vibrant, innovative and globally competitive ICT industry that strategically plans for the future and underpins future productivity gains in all other sectors of the economy.

Vision Statement 2 - National Marketing and Branding

An Australian ICT sector to be well supported by the Australian, State and Territory Governments under a strong national Australian ICT brand, that presents a united front globally and is well known for its innovation and quality ICT services in key international markets.

Vision Statement 3 - Innovation

An Australian ICT industry that is a magnet for private investment to support R&D and commercialisation of technology through large, multi-disciplinary commercial R&D and product realisation centres.

Vision Statement 4 - Innovation in Procurement Practices

Government as a model ICT purchaser of Australian innovation, recognising that as the largest single ICT customer in Australia, its procurement practices have a substantial impact on innovation in the ICT industry and provide reference sites to facilitate global market penetration.

Vision Statement 5 - Skills

An Australian ICT industry with a leading skill base by world standards with the Australian, State and Territory Governments, industry and education providers working collaboratively to improve skills foresighting, skills development and enhance enrolments in ICT courses.

Vision Statement 6 - International Opportunities

Australian technology businesses to have the capacity and necessary government market intelligence and support to readily identify and respond to real international business opportunities and consistently convert these to positive business wins. Australia has a competitive investment environment, benchmarked against global standards, which seeks to promote Australia as an attractive destination for ICT investment.

Vision Statement 7 - Collaboration and Global Integration

Australian ICT SMEs to be competing successfully on the world stage with the capability and necessary expertise available to access markets, attract venture capital and commercialise their technology solutions.

Vision Statement 8 - Entrepreneurship

Our ICT entrepreneurs to possess the managerial, technical and marketing skills to develop their businesses, compete for growth capital and move forward on national and international business opportunities.

Vision Statement 9 - ICT Infrastructure

A high speed, affordable national broadband infrastructure and complementary e-security network that puts Australia amongst the leaders in the OECD in terms of its broadband capabilities. Be one of the first nations to gain the benefits from migrating to IPv6.

Vision Statement 10 - ICT Literacy

Australia to become a highly ICT literate and truly technology proficient society that adopts, adapts and confidently embraces and exploits technology to its advantage and on an equitable basis.

Vision Statement 11 - ICT Standards and Conduct

Australia to increase its development and application of open technical and professional standards, at both a national and international level. Trustworthy technology to be increasingly attained by strongly encouraging professionalism and the ethical and principled conduct of ICT practitioners.

Vision Statement 12 - Regulatory Policy

Australia’s regulatory policy to be proportionate to need and not to become an impediment to innovation and investment in ICT.

From: "A 10 year Strategic Vision for the Australian Information and Communications Technology Sector", NICTIA, May 2007