Hi,

Before I start a reminder that this blog is MY OWN OPINION and does not reflect that of my employer, IBM

Lets start with a Video – props to “smarterplanetanz“

Last week, on June 10th, the IBM General Manager for Australia & New Zealand, Mr Glen Boreham addressed the National press club, his subject was “To a smarter economy”.

You can download and read his speech here if you wish too.

The Point of this particular blog post is that I truly believe that Australia, and any other country for that matter, has an opportunity to move itself to the next level of efficiency. Regardless of your belief that economic stimulus is good or bad, if you accept that this money is being spent, then it should be spent on improving the efficiency of the country.

I firmly belive that;-

  • Given the opportunity, people will make intelligent informed decisions about what they do & how they consume our scarce resources.
  • Greater “intelligence” needs to be embedded into all systems so that we can get the information to people to make those decisions.
  • Australia, though the current investments in Infrastructure has an opportunity, if focused on the whole picture, to embed intelligence into many of its core societal systems, road, water, electricity, health care etc.
  • Interconnecting this intelligence so that a complete view is obtained will help make Australia a “smarter”, more efficient, and productive country.

Mr Prime Minister, & your ministry, to all the Premiers & all their cabinet’s, to every elected official, “Shovel ready” is not what we are looking for here, we are looking for “intelligence ready” smarter infrastructure projects – projects that are ready to not only be built, but to have sufficient intelligence built in so that our society can know and measure the value that investment actually generates in our economy.

All the issues that our society faces will only start to be solved once we have enough information to know what the real problem is – now is the time to start generating this information.

So this is the last point, a Smarter Australia needs to be bold and provide all this information, in the appropriate form, for citizens to access. As an example, I can not find out, on line, immediately, how much power is being generated, and how much is being consumed, someone must know (hopefully) why wouldn’t this be made available to everyone who wants it ?

A smarter county can only be an open, sharing, country, as we move forward and start making decisions about Infrastructure projects, we need to add intelligence, then make this information available, in an appropriate form, to everyone.

Thanks for reading (and watching).