Sustainability key to ICT future: AIIA

INDUSTRY sustainability issues related to ICT skills must become a central focus in 2008 if Australia is to keep a healthy technology sector, according to the peak industry lobby, Australian Information Industry Association.

AIIA chief executive Sheryle Moon said that while environmental sustainability was the focus of media attention – and an important touchstone for the industry – technology needed to look at a broader concept of sustainability.

There were clear threats to the sustainability of the ICT industry, most of which were driven by three factors: falling ICT student enrolments, an increasingly competitive labor market, and the imminent retirement of the baby boomer generation, Ms Moon said.

While the reduction of ‘power in and carbon out’ is the focus of world media, the ICT industry needs to think more laterally about sustainability to remain economically viable and intellectually relevant, she said.

“Traditional ideas about sustainability are becoming too limiting as ICT enters a business era that is being slowly depleted by an industry brain-drain,” Ms Moon said.

“Retaining skills must become an integral part of the way that we think about environmental design in ICT, alongside all the things that we usually think of when we consider sustainable industry practice.”

“Foremost as an industry, ICT will need to address the health of our workplaces to attract and retain the skills that are needed in the future.”

Job stress and poor management practices have become all too common in modern business. These issues are strong drivers of absenteeism and significant factors in high staff turnover, she said. The ICT industry cannot afford this.

“Designing healthier workplaces will mean a return to the age-old management principles of establishing trust, communicating a clear vision, and setting goals and objectives that align with both corporate and individual values,” Ms Moon said.

“We cannot afford to sit idly by while problems that we have long been aware of eat into our most valuable resource, the skilled workforce. 2008 must become the year of the sustainable workplace,” Ms Moon concluded.

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NICTA secures additional funding

THE nation’s peak technology industry research body, National ICT Australia, has secured an extra to hire a group of Australian chip researchers recently made redundant when their lab was shut down.

The 16 researchers, considered world-class in their field, were recently made redundant from LSI Australia – formerly Agere Systems – following the closure of their North Ryde research facility.

The additional $4.8 million in funding over two years was set aside by Communications and IT Minister Helen Coonan just before the federal election was called.

The extra funding from the Australian Government means NICTA will be able to offer new employment to these researchers. They will be working on wireless-related research within NICTA’s Embedded Systems research theme. This research is developing next generation wireless networks.

“Through this team Australia has developed a core competency in silicon chip design which is leading edge and contributed to Australia’s ICT capability,” NICTA acting chief executive officer Professor Aruna Seneviratne said.

The addition of the researchers to the Millimetre Wave Gigabit Wireless Project team will allow NICTA to fast-track research on the technology. NICTA envisages that the increased effort afforded by the LSI team could mean that research from the project would be ready for commercialisation in two years.

“NICTA identified an opportunity to merge the LSI Australia-Agere team with an existing research effort to create state-of-the-art personal broadband wireless chips which will enable people to transfer large multi-media files, such as entire movies, a thousand times faster than currently possible,” NICTA Chief Technology Officer of Embedded Systems Dr Chris Nicol said.

The researchers will be based at NICTA’s New South Wales facilities and will be part of NICTA’s efforts in Embedded Systems.

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PC-makers eager for a Rudd govt

PC hardware makers have been showered with big-ticket promises from both parties during the election that has them looking forward to sweet years ahead for their education sector business units.

From the Kevin Rudd promise to turn every school into a “digital school” (an admittedly vague commitment) to John Howard’s tax rebates on education expenses, its looked like a Christmas come early.

But just how much of the funding commitments – Rudd said Labor will spend $1 billion over four years on its digital school plan – translates as new money for the industry remains to be seen.

A large number of the middle-class beneficiaries of the election largesse would have purchased computers on a regular upgrade basis anyway – and they’ll simply (and happily) enjoy the middle-class welfare being put forward by both major parties.

Still, in the absence of industry development policy the IT sector might reasonably have hoped for, the money being tipped into the education sector is generally positive for the industry.

Federal Labor’s National Secondary School Computer Fund will allow every Australian student in years 9-12 to have access to their own school computer.

The National Secondary School Computer Fund will allow secondary schools to apply for capital grants of up to $1 million to acquire new or upgrade information technology equipment.

This could include personal laptops or computers, thin clients with virtual desktops and internet network infrastructure to plug our secondary schools into the information superhighway.

Under Labor’s plan, 99 per cent of school children will also get access to broadband connections of speeds up to 100 megabits per second at school through fibre to the premises (FTTP) broadband infrastructure.

The other one per cent of students will get improved access at school, via the best available fixed line, wireless and satellite technologies.

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