ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY
FINALIST your way up the levels. The more effort you put in,
the better you get. You have to have digital skills if
you want to survive.
As a direct action of the Advance Ipswich Plan,
Ipswich City Council announced its intention to
develop Australia’s most comprehensive Smart City
Program based on three simple principals of jobs,
growth and liveability. The Level Up Program is a Sunshine Coast Council
funded program aimed at helping local small and
medium sized businesses connect to high speed
broadband (as NBN rolls out across the region),
to ensure they have the necessary awareness
and skills to utilise digital tools to improve their
productivity and profitability.
IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL
“Smart City Program”
Under the direction of a newly formed Digital
Innovation Steering Committee, Council spent over
six months researching domestic and international
Smart City programs assessing the success and
failure of more than 350 initiatives.
At the same time, the Smart City Team engaged
over 400 community, industry, government,
development, emergency service, utility, education
and health care representatives to capture
perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of
the Ipswich region.
The team was then able to align a comprehensive
variety of opportunities and challenges with a
qualified set of global best-practice Smart City
initiatives.
The Digital Innovation Steering Committee took
on the task of assessing and prioritising the
350 Smart City options using factors including
Relevance, Impact, Cost, Funding, Time,
Dependencies, Technology, Resources, Reliability
and Collaboration.
The result was a list of prioritised Smart City
initiatives addressing the particular needs of Ipswich
in the most efficient and effective way.
To inspire initial interest, businesses were
encouraged to participate in free information
sessions both in person and online via webinar.
Individuals then signed up for either the 12-week
program (featuring a mix of in-person and online
training), or individual components of the program.
The program includes 12 one-hour webinars,
webinar recordings, four half day workshops,
access to mentors, a private Facebook group,
discounts via program partners, and access to
the online resources portal featuring a range of
additional resources.
This format gives small business owners flexibility
to study around their business and family
commitments. Over 370 unique business people
have now engaged in some aspect of the program
thus far, with the program still delivering additional
workshops throughout 2017.
The program was backed by over twelve partners
including major Telcos, Chambers of Commerce
and business organisations, keen to help accelerate
the message and empower local businesses.
Council was then able to develop more detailed
assessments of the top 30 possible Smart City
initiatives allowing for further critical review and
prioritisation.
This process continued until the Digital Innovation
Steering Committee arrived at a set of actionable
prioritised initiatives, platforms and principals
which could be collated as the Ipswich Smart City
Program.
FINALIST
SUNSHINE COAST CITY COUNCIL
“Level Up – Digital Upskilling Program for SME’s”
Surviving in business is quite competitive, and in
the digital era, the game has changed. You start at
Level 1, and as you become more skilled, you work
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