The website is up for the Prime Ministers 2020 conference (link). They’re taking applications, although if media reports are to be believed most of the positions will go to our self appointed elite, but ordinary folk might get a look in.
I didn’t expect the Government to have any focus on technology and ecommerce (the Government still doesn’t have an ICT policy) so I wasn’t disappointed.
However, there are a couple of streams where the internet gets a look in:
- Towards a creative Australia: the future of the arts, film and design includes “How to encourage participation in emerging global industries such as game design, the internet 2.0, graphics-rich applications and animation”
Emerging? WTF? Two of America’s five top listed companies are in tech (Microsoft and Google), games sell more than movies, how exactly is this emerging globally exactly? - Economic Infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of our cities includes “Ensure that digital technologies are harnessed to improve consumer services, business productivity and the delivery of government services.”
read broadband at what Conroy is now saying should be min spec of 12mb/s, nearly third world levels given the rest of the world is rolling out 100mb/s
My natural inclination is to be negative on this, and yet there are at least two streams where people could talk tech, presuming we can actually get people up who understand Web 2.0. That in itself is a challenge, given the first stream will be stacked with actors, journalists and creative types, the second stream will hardly look at the internet given how screwed up we are after 11 years of the Howard Government being asleep at the infrastructure wheel.
I might apply. I wouldn’t bet on getting up, but you’ve got to be in it to win it. If anyone else is thinking of nominating let me know, happy to provide a reference or what ever else is needed in getting some friendly faces into the final makeup; ultimately what I care passionately about is that there’s a real voice or voices from the Web 2.0/ tech community at this event, at least trying to be heard. It’s all very well and good to snipe from the sidelines, but at least if one of us was there, we could put our case forward.
Any thoughts, let me know in the comments. To quote the new JFK, Barak Obama, YES WE CAN. 🙂
