Provided are:
- Media release: Call for public comments on digital economy initiatives
- DRAFT Digital Hubs program guidelines (PDF, 207 KB)
- DRAFT Digital Enterprise program guidelines (PDF, 304 KB)
Here are some excerpts from the drafts converted to HTML:
The Digital Hubs program will establish a Digital Hub in each of the 40 communities that first benefit from the National Broadband Network (NBN).
The program will provide residents in the local community with training in digital literacy skills to help them to participate in the NBN-enabled digital economy. The Digital Hubs will also demonstrate the opportunities presented by the NBN and how households can take advantage of these opportunities by connecting with it.
Community organisations—including public libraries, local councils, adult education institutions and other organisations are eligible to provide the activities of a Digital Hub.
Effective participation in the digital economy will deliver positive benefits for Australian families and communities in the form of improved access to business and job opportunities, health, education and government services.
Targeted action is required to minimise the extent to which digital exclusion overlaps with, and exacerbates, social exclusion and to maximise the extent to which the benefits of participating in the digital economy are enjoyed by all Australian families and communities.
About 26 per cent of Australians aged 15 years and over did not use the internet in 2008–09. This figure is much higher for retired persons, low-income earners, Indigenous Australians and those living in remote areas1.
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network has noted ‘a potential barrier to widespread community benefit is lack of familiarity and comfort with the use of technology’2.
Without such assistance, there is a very real risk of a widening gap for the most disadvantaged groups, of declining productivity and competitiveness, and of regional communities becoming economically stranded because of the lack of take-up of new technology.
The Digital Hubs program supports the National Digital Economy Strategy goal that by 2020 Australia will rank among the top five OECD countries in the portion of households that connect to broadband at home.
Information on the NBN, National Digital Economy Strategy and the Digital Enterprise program is at Attachment A.
To provide funding to establish a Digital Hub that will provide training to narrow the gap between those Australians who engage online and those who do not. Digital Hubs will enable local residents to increase their online engagement and better understand the opportunities presented by the NBN by demonstrating applications enabled by high-speed broadband.
These guidelines provide an overview of the Digital Hubs program and information for potential applicants for Round One of the program. The guidelines outline:
the program’s purpose, time frames and desired outcomes
eligibility requirements
the application process.
The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (the department) will administer the Digital Hubs program. The total program funding is $13.6 million.
The department will release funding in staged rounds, according to the NBN rollout schedule.
Payments to grant recipients will follow the achievement of milestones described in the funding agreement.
1 ABS 2008–09 Household Use of IT, table 3.8, page 36 (www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/9B44779BD8AF6A9CCA25768D0021EEC3/$File/81460_2008-09.pdf)
2 Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Submission to the House of Representatives Inquiry into the Role and Potential of the National Broadband Network, February 2011 (Submission Number 128) (www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/ic/NBN/subs.htm)
From: DRAFT Digital Hubs program guidelines , DBCDE, 2011
The Digital Enterprise program will provide training and advice to small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and not-for-profit organisations (NFPs)—including local cultural institutions—in communities that first benefit from the National Broadband Network (NBN). The program will help these organisations to better understand how they can maximise the opportunities from greater digital engagement, enabled by the NBN.
The program will provide group training seminars as well as advice to individual organisations on how to use high-speed broadband applications enabled by the NBN to diversify their operations. Such applications will help improve online presence, offer new products and services, expand markets, improve competitiveness, and increase the means for communicating with customers, suppliers and partners.
The program will also assist NFPs to engage online by using the NBN to extend their reach into the community, expand their donor pools to include, potentially, the entire world, and explore more innovative ways of creating awareness for their causes.
Local cultural institutions participating in the program will be assisted to use broadband services enabled by the NBN to engage online to enhance their standing as community -based centres and reach a wider audience, while helping foster an environment of shared knowledge and understanding.
The use of online technologies by Australian businesses currently lags behind key international competitors such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Korea and France1. As at June 2009, only 41.5 per cent of all Australian businesses had a web presence and only 27.1 per cent of businesses took orders via the internet2. ABS figures for 2009–10 show that only 40 per cent of businesses reported a web presence and 24.8 per cent received orders online3.
Research conducted in 2010 highlights the need to assist Australian businesses and other community organisations to understand how best to make use of the NBN as it becomes available to them4. Without such assistance there is a very real risk of declining productivity and competitiveness, including regional communities becoming economically stranded because of a lack of take-up of new technology. If this occurred, the full benefits of the Australian Government investment in the NBN would not be realised.
A key reason cited for not going online is a lack of skills or a perceived need for an online presence. However, when small businesses do go online the gains can be immediate. A Tasmanian sign writer, David Jones, has described the change in capability since connecting to the NBN last year as going from ’walking around in sandshoes to driving a Ferrari’5. His new-found ability to transfer, online, large files that previously he had couriered has opened unlimited business horizons.
The Digital Enterprise program supports the National Digital Economy Strategy goal that by 2020 Australia will rank in the top five OECD countries in relation to the proportion of businesses and NFPs using online opportunities to drive productivity improvements, expand their customer bases and enable jobs growth.
Information on other relevant Australian Government initiatives, including the NBN, the National Digital Economy Strategy and the Digital Hubs program is at Attachment A.
The Digital Enterprise program provides funding to deliver training to SMEs, NFPs and local cultural institutions to help them understand how they can improve their online presence and take advantage of the opportunities presented by the NBN.
These guidelines provide an overview of the Digital Enterprise program for potential funding recipients and outline the:
program’s purpose, time frames and desired outcomes
eligibility requirements
application process.
The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (the department) will administer the Digital Enterprise program. The total program funding is $10 million for up to three years.
The department will release funding in staged rounds, according to the NBN rollout schedule.
Payments to grant recipients will follow the achievement of milestones described in the funding agreement.
One Digital Enterprise service provider will be funded in each eligible location.
The total amount of funding provided in each eligible location will generally be between $140 000 and $280 000 (GST-inclusive) over a period of up to three years.
The amount of a grant will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis and will be proportional to the size of the area and the activities within it proposed by the successful applicant.
Ability to co-contribute funding or in-kind contributions to the program, including personnel, equipment, premises, funding or other resources would be viewed favourably but is not essential and the department will consider each application on its individual merits (see Applicant Merit Criteria below).
Co-contributions may be a combination of cash and in-kind services. Any in-kind contributions should be valued at cost with the valuation method specified. Applicants should use market-based rates to value in-kind labour contributions from project team members.
1 The ABS publication ‘Business Use of Information Technology 8129.0 2005–06’ shows in table 5.1 (Australia and selected countries) Australia ranks 23rd of the selected international countries in the percentage of businesses with a website. The 54.8 per cent of businesses online in Australia compares with greater than 80 per cent in the five leading countries—Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. (www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/8D42EDD9E2BC4FBCCA2573A9001B4877/$File/81290_2005-06.pdf).
The Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development report ‘The Global Information Society: a Statistical View’ (April 2008) also shows in table 16 that in web presence penetration Australia ranks lowly at 52 per cent, well behind the EU, Canada and Japan (www.unctad.org/en/docs//LCW190_en.pdf).
For e-turnover as a percent of total turnover, Australia was recently ranked at 14, with 12 per cent—well behind the three leading countries, which each had greater than 20 per cent (see table 5, E-Commerce leadership, p. 19, at www.itif.org/files/2010-25-years.pdf).2 ABS 8166.0, ‘Summary of IT Use and Innovation in Australian Business 2008–09’ (www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/8166.0Main+Features12008-09?OpenDocument).
3 ABS 8166.0, ‘Summary of IT Use and Innovation in Australian Business, 2009–10’ (www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/5A513D09038ADF47CA25739500185B21?opendocument).
4 The Allen Consulting Group, ‘Opportunities for small business and community organisations in NBN first release areas’, February 2011 (www.dbcde.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/135506/Opportunities_for_small_business_and_community_organisations_in_NBN_first-release_areas.PDF)
5 NBN Co case study ‘Small business—remote working’ (www.nbnco.com.au/news-and-events/case-studies/case-study-small-business-remote-working.html)
From: DRAFT Digital Enterprise program guidelines, DBCDE, 2011
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