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Growing our ICT industry

Peter Davidson, Information Age

17/06/2007 21:14:33

When ACS president Phillip Argy last year proposed that stakeholders in Australia's ICT industry should convene to develop a 10-year strategy to ensure its evolution into world leadership, his call was greeted largely with derision.

He persisted however, and having started the drafting of a vision statement in collaboration with ACS policy manager Len Joynson, encouraged members of the National ICT Alliance (NICTIA) to contribute to its letter and spirit.

Despite early doubts, all members of the alliance have worked to develop Energising Australian Innovation, 10-year strategic vision for Australian ICT.

"It seemed to me that we needed to know what our industry should look like in 2020 if Australia was to move to front edge of world-class ICT, rather than just trailing along adding to the country's trade imbalance," he says.

"We adopted a 10-year frame, and set out to delineate a number of key policy areas in which public and private sector stakeholders should work together to ensure the prosperity of our nation."

NICTIA comprises representatives from industry, professional, user and technology development organisations across the Australian ICT sector and is dedicated to its development by sharing initiatives, opinion and information.

Its members include the ACS, AEEMA, AIIA, AIMIA, AMTA, APSCF, ATUG, CSIRO ICT section, Communications Alliance, DSTO, IIA, ISOC, MSIA, NECA, SETEL, Standards Australia, TEDICORE and TSA. (These abbreviations can be expanded at www.nictia.org.au).

This is the vision:

Preamble Australia's economic prosperity over the last decade, and for the foreseeable future, is critically dependent on productivity gains underpinned by innovation in information and communications technologies (ICTs). The two 'sweet spots' on the innovation continuum are, first, where the community makes innovative use of existing ICT and, second, where the ICT industry creates innovative technology. This document articulates a 10 year vision for Australia in an environment that will nurture and enhance both of these 'sweet spots'.

The National ICT Industry Alliance, NICTIA, has membership that represents a wide cross section of the Australian information and communications technology industry. NICTIA provides a 'clearing house' where organisations representing the interests of industry, ICT professionals and public R&D institutions can meet to exchange views and discuss initiatives to advance promotion and development of ICT in Australia.

Members of the NICTIA believe that Australia needs a national ICT strategy. Countries that have developed and vigorously pursued national ICT strategies, such as Ireland, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, India and Canada have been demonstrably successful in establishing thriving ICT sectors with flow on effects across all sectors of their economies.

While NICTIA members believe that Australia is a strong producer of innovative ICT products and services, our global comparative advantage continues to reduce and we face being relegated to a product distribution hub if we do not put serious focus on our ICT future and enhance linkages with global supply chains.

This document represents the collective views of NICTIA members on issues considered to be fundamental to Australia's success as an innovator and producer of commercial ICT products and services. These issues are recognised as key considerations in the development of a proposed 10 year ICT strategy and policy framework for Australia. They should be central to documents being prepared and implemented by the Australian Government and by state, territory and local governments.

It is recognised that this renewed policy framework will build on the existing 'Framework for the Future' developed by the Australian Government in 2003 and supplement policy initiatives being undertaken by various State and Territory governments.

It is not our intention to specify in detail policies that ought to be adopted. Whilst examples are given for illustrative purposes, we aim more to nominate a series of key policy areas in which proactive policy development must be undertaken in conjunction with all industry stakeholders.

Nature of the Australian ICT sector Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has developed to a point where it now underpins almost every aspect of our home and work lives. Technology is becoming ubiquitous, pervasive and transforming. There is virtually no product that does not in some way depend on technology for its development, production, commercialisation or distribution.

Technology forms the backbone on which all Australian industries function, facilitating production and efficient resource use. It has been a major source of our productivity growth over the past 10 years and is set to continue to drive productivity growth into the future. In fact, studies undertaken by the OECD, the Productivity Commission and ABS show that 50% of all business productivity can be attributed to the application of ICTs.

The ICT sector is made up of the ICT equipment, communications (including telecommunications) and ICT services and software industries, as well as ICT focused activity in all of the other sectors of the economy.

Moreover, the ICT sector enables most other 'user' industry sectors e.g. manufacturing, mining, agriculture, transport, retail and financial services, media and entertainment, government services (health, education, defence and security, welfare, law and order etc).

While the ICT equipment manufacture segment's share of the market has significantly declined over the last decade, the communications, software and services segments are holding their own in the face of competition. However, the emergence of a new digital industry (e.g. digital TV, radio etc) is creating new opportunities for manufacturing, particularly in new product design, development and production (i.e. product realisation).

Nevertheless, Australia is, by comparison to other OECD countries, a poor promoter and exporter of its own innovation. Ironically, Australia's greatest comparative advantage is our strong solutions development and technology integration capability, but governments and government agencies have been slow to recognise it as a product, and need to develop a better understanding of how to nurture, assist and help commercialise this national capacity.

By and large our local ICT businesses (over 95% of whom are small businesses) are still developing solutions for the domestic private sector.

They need to better exploit the international potential of their innovations and have better access to, and knowledge of, offshore problems which they could solve more effectively and innovatively than their global competitors.

National 10-year strategy To compete and interact effectively with our trading partners, Australia needs an essential overarching medium to long term strategic framework to provide direction and structure for ICT policy, aimed at generating sustainable growth within the ICT sector to drive future productivity improvements.

The Australian ICT industry sector believes support for a 10 year national ICT strategy should be a critical priority for all Australian governments.

As its goal, it should represent a blueprint for developing an internationally competitive ICT sector in Australia. It must promote entrepreneurial activity and infrastructure development through a supportive policy, regulatory and legislative environment whilst having regard to appropriate consumer safeguards.

It must enhance our capabilities, create demand for, and drive commercialisation of innovation and development of new products and services. It must also foster scale and enhance the ability of our firms to attract the necessary venture capital to create, exploit and globally license intellectual property.

Importantly, it must link Australian ICT to the global market and provide guidance and focus to the Australian community and business over the next 10 years. Its end goal must be to improve Australia's ICT export performance and its success should be measured on the basis of an achieved increase in exports over current export levels, of at least 10% each year.

To be successful, it will require a whole-of-government approach with all relevant portfolios contributing to an integrated and coherent strategy that transcends the boundaries of individual departmental and ministerial responsibilities. It should build on the Australian Government's current Action Agenda programs such as the Electronics Industry and Digital Content Industry Action Agendas currently under implementation

The Ministerial Online and Communications Council should be tasked with the development, oversight, implementation and reporting on the 10 year strategy under the guidance of the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. The strategy should then be put before COAG for its in principle agreement. Vision Statement 1

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.

National marketing and branding

In addition to a national ICT strategy, Australia needs a coordinated and focused approach to marketing its ICT capabilities nationally and internationally.

In the absence of a national approach, this is currently handled in a fragmented manner with each state and territory competing within the international market.

Industry and commentators within the ICT sector believe that this largely uncoordinated and 'state-based' approach is potentially counterproductive to Australia moving forward in ICT.

A key element of the national ICT strategy involves the Australian Government taking the initiative to implement a coordinated approach between the Australian and State and Territory Governments to unite their marketing efforts and move forward by promoting and presenting a united front to the international market.

Australia needs a distinctive Australian ICT brand.

Work to date under the 'Technology Australia' brand has been well-meaning but generally regarded as not successful in achieving its objective. The recent replacement 'Brand Australia' initiative has capitalised on the instant recognition values of a kangaroo which has recently underpinned Australia's tourism marketing. Clearly more development work will be needed to ensure that the new brand's imagery does also convey the country's capabilities in ICT and advanced technology generally.

A customer-focused Industry (vertical) approach to marketing may need to be developed to market the Australian ICT industry from a whole of country perspective, working within national strategic ICT export objectives. This approach will facilitate collaboration by shifting the focus from our own technology and geographic regions, to targeting industry markets, understanding the customer, and driving business by showcasing our depth of understanding of global customer issues.

Instead of focusing on a single technology segment, we also recognise that solutions now require input from multiple sources (convergence).

To assist in bringing these technology segments together the vertical marketing approach allows companies to work together. This framework supports all segments of the ICT industry - software, telecommunications, electronics, and digital content - and supports their positioning in the international marketplace.

Suggested Customer Industry Segments and solutions include the following: - Health, e.g. solutions for hospitals, GPs, research, medical equipment, cancer patients, diabetes, remote diagnosis, eHealth.

- Aged and Disability, e.g. solutions and services for people with disabilities and aged people including people who have vision, hearing or speech impairment, physical disabilities including arthritis, intellectual disabilities, learning impairments and autism.

- Transport and Automotive, e.g. training, simulation, modelling, animation, scheduling, safety, logistics, and telematics.

- Defence and Security, e.g. network security, SOX Compliance (US), military, HR, training, mobile applications.

- Media and Entertainment, e.g. digital content, film, mobile content, games, electronic toys, event applications.

- Education, e.g. eLearning, SMS applications, schools, edutainment, higher education.

- Retail, e.g. POS solutions, logistics, touch screens, keypads, handheld, wireless and RF technologies, solutions for bars, clubs, fine dining, convention centres.

- Corporate, Government and Business Intelligence, e.g. management dashboards, CRM, accounting, Supply Chain Management, logistics, Enterprise Applications, eGovernment.

- Industrial Solutions, e.g. mining, mine safety, manufacturing, electronic components, agribusiness. - Home Solutions, e.g. home networking, television, broadcast, broadband services, digital suppliers, consumer devices, intelligent home, electricity demand management.

A national group to market Australian ICT already exists - the Committee for Marketing ICT of Australia (CoMICTA), in which NICTIA now plays a role. CoMICTA's terms of reference and membership could be further refined so that developing a national ICT branding and marketing campaign become a key imperative.

Vision Statement 2: 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.

Innovation Innovation and R&D has recently been subject to a comprehensive study by the Productivity Commission.

Major technological product innovation is not the only form of innovative activity occurring in the economy: a broader range of activities that contribute to innovation including activities that involve the application of existing knowledge in new and different ways is also critical. Innovation is non-linear: it can encompass technological or non-technological activities, processes or products, breakthrough ideas or merely better ways of doing things.

All types of innovation will drive the next level of productivity gains in the Australian economy. Increasing the level of investment in R&D and commercialisation of intellectual property will be key to achieving these productivity gains. But innovation is not limited to research work. Unfortunately innovation policy in Australia is still firmly centred on the concept of innovation as major technological product invention.

Licensing rather than sale of intellectual property should be encouraged so that Australia both retains the kudos and the revenue from exploiting its intellectual capacity.

Current government R&D spending and policy focuses more on pure basic and strategic research than applied and commercial R&D.

While there has been some success in achieving commercial outcomes from this investment, and while basic and strategic research is important, commercial exploitation is not necessarily the primary focus of much government funded research. Considerable barriers still exist between the cultures of basic research and commercial application of research in Australia.

Commercial innovation focuses more on re-engineering technologies or existing products including innovative market research to create the next level of product development for commercial exploitation. It is best achieved by commercial R&D and product realisation centres that are attuned to current and emerging markets, and have as their primary focus generating revenue for shareholders and investors through sales and exports.

Production realisation includes both product development and production development and it is recognised that cost effective product realisation is one of the most important preconditions for future growth of the Australian high technology manufacturing industry.

While many large multinationals have 'in house' product development centres, most of Australia's fragmented ICT industry, which largely comprises SMEs, does not have the resources for this capability and there is a pressing need to create and encourage more collaborative facilities.

Australia's continued competitive advantage in ICT resides with our innovative professional engineering and related skills workforce that can integrate and adapt local field knowledge to technologies sourced globally to quickly meet niche market opportunities locally and overseas.

Japan, Germany, Korea, Taiwan and China have used the commercial R&D centre model to great effect to create new and vibrant ICT industries.

Fostering competitive private sector commercial ICT R&D centres is a key area where government can have a substantial impact on the Australian innovation landscape. The strong spill over effects for the economy that will result from large scale commercialisation and industrialisation of innovation justify a significant role for government policy in this area. These centres could link with public sector R&D efforts to improve their commercial outcomes.

Successful private sector commercial R&D and product realisation centres will provide Australian companies with the latest innovation to use, re-engineer and manufacture and develop new products.

Importantly, these centres will develop commercialisation management expertise and overcome the many learning curves required to successfully bring a product to market and source ongoing capital. They will provide the necessary networking between technologies and our innovative professional engineering and ICT skills workforce to integrate and adapt local field knowledge to technologies sourced globally to quickly meet niche market opportunities locally and overseas.

Long term statements of government policy give focus and comfort to the private sector. South Korea's statement of national aspirations for new technologies and 'growth engines' in which it will have a comparative advantage, needs to be emulated. Public policy frameworks can impact on innovative activity in Australia. As an example, competition policy is set in a local or national context which prevents many companies from innovating and competing effectively in a global marketplace.

Industry would respond well to a statement of broad objectives from government, as a policy setter and major purchaser of ICT, as a framework within which short to medium term plans can be developed with an eye to a future that has been both clearly articulated and embraced by public and private sectors.

Vision Statement 3: 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.

Innovation in procurement practices Government is the largest single customer for the ICT industry in Australia, but doing business with government is often complex and costly. To that end, government procurement practices need to be revamped. At present, there are at least nine separate contractual arrangements -one for each jurisdiction. This adds enormous cost to doing business with government and the level of complexity is just one of many inhibitors for companies wanting to do business with the government market.

Government is also an inherently risk averse customer. While it is proper to apply risk management strategies when dealing with taxpayers' money, governments' risk management approach can be extremely restrictive. This adds cost to the procurement process and precludes more innovative solutions being offered.

Governments' procurement practices impact heavily on the ICT industry. Government can act as an important reference site for suppliers seeking to enter the export market, yet their contractual arrangements with the ICT industry often discourage companies from entering the government market. Government is forgoing an important industry development opportunity through their procurement practices.

Purchasing processes that allow for piloting of new innovations and incorporate risk management strategies to mitigate the real rather than imagined risk associated with new solutions will significantly benefit government efficiency.

One way of achieving this is to take a new approach whereby a percentage of the procurement budget is dedicated to pilot testing of innovative solutions so that the potential risk is managed. The piloted solution can then be made available to all government departments who may have a need for it.

Governments should consider a consistent national contractual framework. Such a framework should include standard arrangements relating to risk management and more commercial terms regarding intellectual property developed during the delivery of a government contract. This would reduce contract costs for both parties, decrease complexity and, with fewer inhibitors, more companies will be prepared to bid for government work, delivering more innovative and cost effective solutions.

Governments are encouraged to more fully use existing cross jurisdictional bodies such as the Australian Procurement and Construction Council to deliver greater national consistency.

Vision Statement 4: 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.

Skills While Australia allocates considerable public sector resources to predicting, analysing and planning for roads, schools, hospitals and other essential infrastructure, we do not allocate sufficient resources, or give sufficient attention to, predicting and building our equally essential ICT skills capability and human infrastructure to ensure we have the people with the right skills to underpin technology assisted productivity growth into the future.

Skills development positively affects a country's ability to absorb and adapt new technologies, which in turn, enhances economic growth. Consequently, a comprehensive national ICT strategy must include a strong skills foresighting capability, knowledge and data and an ability to feed this to higher education institutions, industry and employees, to ensure we have the capability to train people in the areas where they are going to be needed at a time when they will be needed.

As part of the national strategy, there must be incentives and programs to encourage firms and governments to engage and devote greater effort and investment in skill foresighting, training and upgrading the skills of their people. We must also find ways of encouraging employees to keep their skills up to date and commit to a regime of continual learning.

Members of NICTIA believe that the DCITA Skills Foresighting Working Group, and its report released in June 2006, Building Australian ICT Skills represents a very good start to improving national skills foresighting in the ICT sector and encourage the Government to implement the recommendations of the report.

One area of focus might be to encourage organisations to embark on a rolling three to five year skills needs forecasting for their organisation, with a view to both internally up skilling and cross training existing staff, as well as working with both tertiary and secondary educational sectors to ensure that the identified needs will be well met. Skill development mechanisms should receive at least as much incentive as migration programmes as a means of addressing current and future skill needs.

In addition, our education system must integrate technology into the learning process so that a significantly increased proportion of young people will be motivated to innovate in whatever careers they choose.

Inevitably a proportion of that increased number will also progress to actually develop innovative technology for others to use.

Vision Statement 5 : 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.

International opportunities The current Australian ICT trade deficit for 2005 stands at around $19.7 billion. This reflects our demand for ICT technology to underpin productivity gains and growth within our economy.

However, within Australia's ICT trade statistics, there are some excellent indicators of areas where Australia has a competitive advantage and a potential to vastly improve its ICT export position.

In addition to our innovative solutions development capability, these include computer services, high quality software and hardware, and specialist electronics such as automotive electronics, embedded systems, defence electronics, electronic systems, medical devices, photonics and opto-electronics and audio visual electronics.

The challenge is to better exploit these capabilities to improve our export position. One problem is that while there are many international opportunities available for which Australian companies may be able to develop superior and highly competitive solutions, they have difficulty in finding out about those opportunities, and limited knowledge and resources to exploit them. Australia needs to improve its supportive mechanisms so industry and government agencies can become more effective in identifying emerging international opportunities and exploiting them.

A proactive approach by Australian government personnel working internationally to identify and import these opportunities to Australia would significantly benefit Australian businesses, especially the SME sector. One practical means of communicating this market intelligence might involve opportunities being logged into a database that alerts Australian businesses that have registered an interest in the subject area. This would create an opportunity to develop solutions to offshore problems, the existence of which otherwise might not have been known.

In addition to improving our export performance, Australia also needs to both provide a more competitive environment for inward investment and to more effectively market Australia as an investment destination.

Government can play a role by creating a climate conducive to encouraging foreign investment. Australia is still a low risk destination for investment opportunities when compared with the popular low cost economies such as India, China or the Philippines.

Although we can not compete with the low labour costs of countries such as those mentioned above, Australia does have competitive advantages such as: • a modern economic base; • political stability with cultural and legal compatibility with key countries of MNC parent companies; • sound infrastructure; • technically skilled workforce and competitive labour rates when compared with other developed nations; • geographic proximity to Asia Pacific markets; • a strong tertiary education system and skills base with a solid foundation in science and research; and analytical and problem solving capabilities unmatched by other countries.

The Government can work with industry to promote these strengths to the global marketplace and to consider making those structural changes necessary to improve the investment environment.

Vision Statement 6: 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.

Collaboration and global integration In order to compete and integrate globally, SME ICT companies are increasingly looking for business opportunities to build relationships and networking that will ultimately increase business growth.

Collaboration between SME companies, or clustering, assists ICT companies to form alliances as a means of increasing international competitive advantage for the purpose of growing their companies.

If Australia wants to create a globally competitive Australian local industry, we need to focus more energy and resources on commercial alliances between ICT related businesses to assist them to build business collaboration and pursue strategic partnerships for future industry benefit.

Industry believes programs which seek to bring together SMEs to explore partnering opportunities and to leverage the critical mass that is created to build their businesses are critical to leverage this opportunity. Partnering will support SMEs to expand market opportunities, share knowledge and resources, develop joint tenders, and exploit economies of scale and better target markets.

To support these themes, collaborative activity needs to be developed that makes more intelligent use of existing capital and resources with specific actions and outcomes around branding (promotion), defining the market, critical mass and capacity building.

Based on successful pilot collaborative activity already undertaken through programs such as Action Agendas, there is growing industry support for such a groundbreaking approach, and industry is seeking to partner with the Australian and State and Territory governments in this activity to: • achieve better responsiveness and use local knowledge to provide 'on the ground' implementation support; • provide co-ordination for the cross pollination of ideas and actions across state and territory boundaries; • leverage existing cluster activities (where appropriate); • better focus the groups to access various government trade support and promotion activities; • develop support programs around various capacity building needs such as access to capital; • more actively facilitate the partnering between companies; and • trial programs such as the 'Tech Team' initiative as proposed in the 2005 Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council report, Growing Technology Based SMEs.

Vision Statement 7: 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.

Entrepreneurship At the very heart of the global economy is the entrepreneur who understands an opportunity, builds a vision and takes a risk to create wealth for their shareholders, employees and financiers. The importance of entrepreneurship cannot be underestimated when building a business environment that will enhance the start-up, growth and internationalisation of ICT firms and generate conditions for attracting capital investment and employment.

SMEs play a vital role in economic and industry development. They have the flexibility to respond quickly to market changes and opportunities to develop specialised niches and to rapidly absorb technological innovations. They are responsible for substantial capital formation and job creation at the local level which, in turn, improves living standards.

While many ICT companies are born out of technological innovation or research, the owners often lack the business skills required to grow their companies. Australia needs a coordinated approach to upgrade the managerial, technical, negotiating and presentation and marketing skills in the ICT SME sector to increase its competitiveness and improve its ability to compete for capital and new business in the global business markets.

Policy support is needed to educate them in how to articulate their vision for the future. Peer networks of entrepreneurs through which learning can be shared is a good vehicle for building these necessary skills. They provide links to sources of finance (including new and innovative systems of credit and financing), technical advice and marketing channels.

Our ICT SMEs will be more able to become successful entrepreneurs when they have access to the right skills, technologies and financial support.

Vision Statement 8: 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.

ICT infrastructure A consistent, reliable, high speed national broadband infrastructure that employs the latest technologies will be a key facet to delivering growth in the Australian economy over the next decade.

In the emerging era of ubiquitous computing and the new information economy, communications is the enabler and must be seen in the same light as other essential infrastructure in terms of its necessity for future industry development. All homes and businesses should have access to high speed Internet connectivity at reasonable prices, and by high speed we mean not less than one and, ultimately, not less than 30 gigabits per second (Gb/s) bandwidth.

Singapore's recently announced IN2015 manifesto promised that every household in Singapore would receive free of charge from the Government ultra high speeds of symmetric 1Gbps or more, with initial provisioning of 100Mbps Internet connection.

Such is the appreciation of the extent to which broadband infrastructure is conducive to innovation and technological proficiency. South Korea started making national plans for broadband deployment in 1998 when it provided the equivalent of $A40 billion over 12 years to provide national access for VDSL or fibre to more than 80% of homes.

South Korea thus moved from having less than 1% penetration in 1995 to become one of the most advanced broadband nations in the world 10 years later. South Korea also invested in reducing the digital divide by ensuring that all sectors of society benefited from the infrastructure.

Broadband will catalyse the emergence of a whole new range of products and services. Mobile communications and hardware convergence will create new user markets and a market for software and content: areas where Australian ICT is strong and provides leading solutions.

If left to industry alone, consensus amongst key industry players is that it is likely to take 10 to 15 years for the appropriate broadband infrastructure to be in place. Regrettably, by then Australia may well have missed the opportunity to be at the forefront of software and content development for communications-based industries.

Additionally, Australia should commit to a timeframe to migrate to next generation Internet technology IPv6 as a priority. IPv6 improves security and has potential to reduce the complexity of administering networks, spark innovation and create new services and job opportunities.

It will provide the means to deliver fully networked homes, offices and communities. Initiatives such as the Australian IPv6 Summit and the ITOL IPv6 for e-Business project have begun this process.

The Australian Government and the State and Territory Governments have a clear and urgent mandate to cooperate to drive installation of a national, high speed, broadband infrastructure network for the benefit of all Australians.

Importantly, achieving a strong digital content industry will require a comprehensive and trustworthy e-security framework so that the community and business can have full confidence in migrating to online business models.

Implementing a comprehensive 'state of the art' e-security framework for Australia must be undertaken as a complementary component of introducing ubiquitous broadband infrastructure.

Australia's success in maximising information society benefits has been based strongly on private sector involvement, with effective government support through limited regulatory intervention while ensuring consumer safeguards and funding of key areas where market forces were insufficient. This approach provided a substantial boost to Australia's early development of the Internet and our capacity for interoperable connections with the world. It allowed Australia to take advantage of new open technologies that were created by the Internet community worldwide.

With the massive growth of popularity of the Internet worldwide, now a number of international processes have taken an interest in the future development of the Internet. Australia has increased its international reputation by well informed and effective participation in these forums, particularly the World Summit on the Information Society and the Internet Governance Forum. Now the OECD is working on a process that will debate the "Future of the Internet" at ministerial level.

Australia needs to continue an approach to these discussions that is fully engaged with the worldwide Internet community and allows full multi-stakeholder participation, including governments, business, the Internet community and civil society. NICTIA is in a strong position to support this participation on a national level.

Openness, user choice and control, and edge based intelligence are central to a thriving Internet. Any discussion of the future of the Internet should be to ensure that these principles are taken into account so that the Internet continues to provide individual users with as many choices and as much flexibility as possible while preserving the end-to-end architecture of the network.

Open standards and open processes enable anyone with good ideas to develop, propose, and promote new standards and applications and provide a strong foundation for further innovation. The focus for government, therefore, should be to foster open, competitive markets, support research and education, and use the Internet to expand e-Government services.

Vision statement 9: 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, and Be one of the first nations to gain the benefits from migrating to IPv6.

ICT literacy ICT literacy at all levels within the community must form an integral part of Australia's national ICT strategy. Australia is moving into a transitional phase over the next 10 years that will see its citizens emerge with a truly connected life - a fully integrated home, leisure and work services environment.

However, there are still sectors within the Australian community that are essentially ICT illiterate, that do not have access to technology or the skills to use it to their advantage.

All sectors of the community must be comfortable and excited about the enormous benefits, work and social changes that new communications technologies will bring.

Australia must maximise the ability for all citizens and business to effectively use ICT.

A core goal for the government and for a national ICT strategy should be to develop a highly technology literate and technology proficient society and business environment that will drive uptake and development of new technology.

The increasingly accepted uncritical copying and pasting of search engine-located text must be eradicated by more concerted teaching of the principles of rigour in research skills and thoughtful and questioning analysis.

The need for curricula to be re-written, and for teacher training skills in this area to be significantly revamped, goes without saying.

An environment conducive to ICT innovation must be the objective and significant resources can be justified to attain and maintain this.

Vision Statement 10: 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.

ICT standards and conduct Standardisation of technology, data, and business practices and a growing sense of professionalism are vital to the further development of the ICT industry in this country.

Technical Standards Research has shown that technical standards increase productivity. A recent study by Standards Australia found that for every 1% increase in the number of Australian Standards developed there is a corresponding .17% increase in productivity.

Technical standards also serve to increase the competitiveness of the Australian ICT industry in a global context by providing a common language - and systems - between Australian and international companies. The uniform approach ensures that barriers of entry to the ICT industry are reduced, while smaller companies are able to compete in the same market as larger operators. Developing open global ICT standards encourages Australia's competitive ability and supports interoperability.

The ICT industry, as a whole, can benefit from implementing common risk management strategies and improve the interconnectivity of their systems. These outcomes can be achieved through increased participation in the area of standardisation.

Professional standards One factor that is essential for innovation to thrive is a trustworthy and secure environment. The technological equivalent of road rage, technology infuriation, is increasing alarmingly. The adverse impact on productivity, as well as the consequential adverse impact on innovation, means it is time to tackle professionalism in the ICT sector.

No longer can "near enough is good enough", nor the 80/20 rule, be acceptable. Increased rigour in the way that projects are proposed, evaluated, approved and implemented is essential. Those practising in areas such as IT security and safety critical systems must be subjected to formal accreditation if trustworthiness is to be attained. The spectacular rise of trusted systems has not been accompanied by a concomitant rise in trustworthy technology; reasonable expectations are increasingly dashed or, at best, disappointed.

As the ubiquity and pervasiveness of technology gathers pace, the truism that professionalism is doing the right thing when no-one is looking becomes more and more important.

Cybercrime will increase unless standards of conduct by those with the technical skills are constrained by their education and training to be deployed responsibly and in the public interest.

Whether ethical behaviour is implemented through adoption of a national code of conduct or as a legal requirement remains to be seen, but the public interest demands that it happen. Similarly, as our safety and security become increasingly dependent on the ethics of unknown and unseen technicians behind the scenes, society will pay a heavy price for undervaluing professionalism and disparaging its efforts to achieve greater recognition and support.

Australia needs trustworthy technology to ensure that the innovative 'sweet spots' are attainable. The challenge for government and industry alike is to ensure that professionalism is more overtly valued and adopted as the best form of risk mitigation.

Vision Statement 11: 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.

Regulatory policy A nation's regulatory structures and framework can impact on the facilitation of innovation and investment.

In an era of convergence, it is timely to revisit the original intent of our existing regulatory instruments to determine their ongoing appropriateness. A 'whole-of-sector' regulatory review is warranted to consider where regulation can be restructured.

An international comparison of regulatory environments is warranted to determine if our regulatory frameworks are in step with current international best practice.

Within the ICT sector, regulations generally fall into two main categories. Those which are in place for the benefit of end users, and those which are in place to ensure efficient, fair trade and promote competition.

All in all, we should be seeking to move to a regulatory environment where businesses are able to quickly bring ideas to commercialisation, consumers are protected, and Australia's national interest advanced.

Vision Statement 12: Australia's regulatory policy to be proportionate to need and not to become an impediment to innovation and investment in ICT.

Conclusion A strong, commercially competitive technology sector will provide cutting edge solutions and tools, drive productivity growth, and supply the expertise to underpin operations in all other sectors of the economy.

New and emerging technologies are creating many opportunities that have enormous commercial potential and where Australia has or could reasonably develop a comparative advantage, but the overlay of professionalism and ethical conduct must be ensured if technological development is to be matched by the trustworthiness that is essential in the public interest.

Australia's competitors, including many emerging countries, are investing heavily in private and public sector ICT research and development. Australia must respond if we are to effectively compete, maintain our comparative advantage and high standard of living derived from being one of the world's leading knowledge-based economies.

Australia needs a national ICT strategy that will unite the efforts of government and industry, inspire and support our entrepreneurs, encourage commercialisation, develop our human capital and deliver the practical infrastructure to underpin the next generation of productivity improvement in the Australian economy while providing the accrued benefits to all Australians.

The National ICT Industry Alliance, NICTIA, has membership that represents a wide cross-section of the Australian information and communications technology industry.

The vision statements and supporting documentation are offered as a foundation upon which Australian governments can support the ICT sector in delivering a vibrant, innovative and competitive Australian ICT sector that will underpin future economic growth.

They are fundamental to Australia's future success as an innovator and producer of commercial, globally competitive ICT products and services.

NICTIA commends this document to all Australian governments as the basis for developing just such a national ICT strategy for Australia.

The complete vision document is available at acs.org.au/attachments/10YearStrategyVision.pdf