Business at the Olympics

Visit to Business Club Australia September 2000

Tom Worthington

Draft 1.0, 20 September 2000, http://www.tomw.net.au/travel/olympics



Incat Ferry Robert Clifford Alarm Panel


  1. Incat Ferry at Business Club Australia
  2. Robert Clifford AO, Chairman of Incat on the bridge

  3. Incat Alarm Panel On the Bridge

From 15 September - 1 October (at the time of the 2000 Olympic Games) Austrade organised the Business Club Australia. This was designed as a business centre for Australian business people to network with the hundreds of international business people visiting for the Olympics.

The events were held at Sydney's Darling Harbour and aboard an Incat fast ferry pulled up alongside. The club is a bit like an airport business lounge, without the airport and an industry conference without most of the boring presentations.

Governments and companies sponsored themed sessions. I attended an excellent lunch Western Australia - The Marine State" and an okay afternoon session sponsored by the United Kingdom. Most sessions were free.

The Club has pretensions of being an ongoing activity (according to the web page), with business centres - in every state and territory around Australia, networking events - around Australia and the world.

Alongside the club was the latest fast ferry from Incat, acting as a floating convention centre for events. This is similar in design to HMAS Jervis Bay. In my last high technology tourist report I suggested miniature robotic aircraft could be launched from the ship, for surveillance over East Timor.

Incat Tasmania will be demonstrated to customers off Sydney after the games. For details contact: Judy Benson

ps: An interesting aspect of sales of this sort of vessel for military purposes is that they are sold to the Army, not Navy. This is because the Army are the end user, the Navy just drive the boat. ;-)

Further Information

Copyright © Tom Worthington 1999.