Special report - Digital Development Forum
The first Digital Development Forum has just finished in Wellington. In attendance were 150 heads of New Zealand based ICT groups and associations including WDANZ.Fran Wilde convened the event under the direction of the Minister of Communications and Information Technology David Cunliffe, who attended, spoke, and answered questions from the floor. Judith Tizard (Minister of Consumer Affairs, Minister Responsible for Archives New Zealand, Minister Responsible for the National Library, Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Associate Minister of Commerce and more) also attended and supported the Minister.
A very broad section of the community was represented, including business, community, creative & cultural, education, local government and of course the ICT industry.
Dennis attended and represented WDANZ at this event, attending the business group convened by Paul Winter, EMA (Central). WDANZ also donated a copy of the book Internet UNMASKED!! to every attendee, a retail value of over $5,000.00. This gesture was very well received by the delegates.
Here are a few take-homes from the day, just received in from Dennis in Wellington.
The Minister David Cunliffe has been seeking a single voice from the IT industry for a while. With the demise of ICT-New Zealand (an effort to bring very tight structural collaboration), it appears that the new initiative will have legs, probably because the individual organizations will remain separate entities under the constitution; the lessons from previous experiences; and the aim is to work together with existing organizations in their current structure.
The government's Digital Strategy 2.0 (http://www.digitalstrategy.
As quoted by Computerworld (http://computerworld.co.nz/
The minister said today that Forum membership is self-selecting. The Forum's job is to set the strategy for the Digital Development Council. Cabinet has approved seed funding, and wants to facilitate and provide policy levers to affect legislative change.
The minister emphasises that he is "passionate to ameliorate* the digital divide."
Dictionary definition: [to make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory; improve.]
The Forum divided into several groups based on sector type (Business, Community & Voluntary, Local Government, Education, ICT, and Creative & Cultural) and discussed the four "enablers" as they related to their own sector:
- Connection
- Confidence
- Capability
- Content
Fran Wilde made mention that Kiwis tend to want to work in silos however they network well, with only two degrees of separation between anyone in New Zealand.
eHeath was a major sector not represented at the Forum today, however it will be involved in the DDF shortly.
The new executive director is Paul Alexander, ex the Prime Minister's and Cabinet office.
David Cunliffe expects that the focus will be moving from how to obtain more bandwidth, to more on how to capitalise on increased bandwidth.
Judith Tizard talked about the difficulties of copyright issues and seeks suggestions and ideas from vested interests and copyright holders.
There was plenty more in relation to the individual sector/group discussions, which I'm sure Dennis will mention more of in due course.
WDANZ
Dennis reports that good value has been created for WDANZ and WDANZ members today through networking with other organizations - corporate, government and other organizations.
Watch this space, he says!
Please feel free to make any comments or ask Dennis any questions when he returns tomorrow morning.
Tagwords: ddf, digital development forum
Posted by John Jones ~ Tuesday 23 September 2008
