Digitalhamilton Enabling Development of a Great New Zealand City
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digitalhamilton enabling development of a great New Zealand city digitalhamilton enabling development of a great New Zealand city Digital Hamilton Enabling development of a great New Zealand city table of contents table of contents Table of Contents 3 Executive Summary 4 Executive Summary 4 The Dawning of the digital age 5 The National Context 6 The Hamilton Context 7 A Digital Strategy for Hamilton 9 Introduction 10 Introduction 10 The Digital Hamilton Study 11 Reading this Study 11 Acknowledgements 11 The Context 13 The National Context – New Zealand “going digital” 14 Digital Strategy 2.0 14 Broadband Investment Initiative 15 The Hamilton Context – Ambition for our City 16 Digital Hamilton 16 Drivers for Digital Hamilton 17 The digital revolution 18 Globalisation and technology advancement 18 Where the world is headed 19 What does the digital revolution mean for Hamilton? 21 The State of Play 24 What is the current state of play? 25 The New Zealand market 26 Things are already happening in Hamilton 27 Hamilton’s Connectivity 29 Hamilton’s Content, Capability and Confi dence 37 How does Hamilton measure up? 41 What are other cities doing? 41 A comparative assessment 42 The Opportunity 46 The Opportunity for Hamilton 46 Hamilton’s City Strategies 47 Supporting Economic Development 47 Underpinning the City Strategies 50 Sector opportunities 54 The opportunity for Iwi 57 The Strategy 59 A Digital Strategy for Hamilton 59 The challenge 60 Overarching Principles 61 The way forward – four core strategy programmes 62 Getting out of the blocks 64 Technical Appendix 66 Technical Appendix 66 Glossary of Acronyms and Terms 73 PAGE 3 DigitalD Hamilton Enabling development of a great New Zealand city executive summary executive summary Digital Hamilton Enabling development of a great New Zealand city executive summary …the advent of the internet the dawning of the digital age has changed The traditional defi nition of the word, “digital” means the use of numbers. One Internet- based dictionary defi nes the word “digital” as of, pertaining to, or using data in the everything form of numerical digits. Today, “digital” is synonymous with computers, with the term “digital technology” generally used to describe computer based Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Of themselves ICTs are not new, the fi rst computers appearing in the early part of the 20th century. However the advent of the Internet has changed everything. digital technology at a glance The last 20 years has seen this fringe technology grow into a global ‘network of networks’, an all-pervasive connectivity substrate that is entwined with almost every …within aspect of our lives. Through its ubiquity, the Internet has, in a short space of time, made the world 20 years, a whole lot smaller. It has put knowledge in the hands of vast numbers of people, 80 per cent of enabled new business models, spawned whole new industries, fuelled a globalisation of economies and markets, and facilitated a social networking culture that has world output effectively neutralised isolation. A vast array of computer-based functional capabilities will be in is now distributed to all corners of the planet. As a medium for the connectedness of peoples, the Internet has leap-frogged all global markets other forms of communication. And as a medium for trade, the Internet has made global markets accessible to virtually anyone and has fuelled an explosion of ‘weightless’ …national industries delivering commercialised services, information and creativity, reducing reliance borders are on traditional forms of transportation to those wishing to produce and consume services. Strong participation in this new and growing global economy requires deliberate becoming less leverage of digital technologies and a focus by local, regional and national authorities relevant on ensuring affordable, equitable access to the Internet. a world in transition It is estimated that within 20 years, 80 per cent of world output will be in global markets, meaning that national borders will become increasingly less relevant. The extent of the globalisation of markets demands new paradigms of connectedness – the world has suddenly become really small for individuals, businesses and countries. Accordingly, the digital environment is now recognised as a critical foundation of economic, social and cultural development. The Internet has already become a fundamentally integral part of modern life. People are hungry for new ways to connect – socially, economically, promotionally and culturally – driving an explosion of ‘social network services’ and making the world accessible to a fast increasing population base. PAGE 5 DigitalD Hamilton Enabling development of a great New Zealand city executive summary The past 20 years of massive economic growth has seen a huge increase in …digital the global middle class mainly in emerging economies such as Russia, India and strategy must China. The need to access these bigger, more dispersed demand pools is driving an be regularly increasing amount of online commerce. refreshed because of the so what is this digital hamilton unalterable study aiming to do? fact that none Hamilton’s Digital study seeks to identify the city’s differentiating attributes – what does of us can see the city do well, what are its relative advantages? A recommended approach will then be explained to enable Hamilton to maximise these attributes by leveraging the digital age. the future with It will also inform the development and implementation of the digital components certainty of Hamilton’s city strategies to enable, enhance and facilitate the economic, social, environmental and cultural development of the city for future generations of Hamiltonians. The study will aim to paint this picture in a form that can be readily understood and contextualised by a diverse range of stakeholders. It will require ongoing championing because its future-oriented focus can easily be lost in the noise of ‘today’. And it must be regularly refreshed because of the unalterable fact that none of us can see the future with certainty. the new zealand situation Increasingly competitive international markets exacerbate the economic impact of New Zealand’s relative geographic isolation. New Zealand has badly underinvested in its fundamental infrastructure over the past 20-30 years, including telecommunications infrastructure, compounding the diffi culties for New Zealanders looking to compete internationally, and painting a picture to global businesses of an unattractive destination in which to invest. Information Communications Technology (ICT) is fi nally registering on the psyche of New Zealanders in the guise of “broadband”. For the fi rst time technology was a legitimate headline issue in the November 2008 general election. Both major parties included policies on broadband in their manifestos, raising the issue with mainstream New Zealand. The new Government is getting serious about a digitally enabled future that recognises the importance of digital components in the new world economy. It does not appear afraid to introduce further regulation to break down monopolistic market structures if necessary and is prepared to contribute signifi cant public funding to upgrade infrastructure. The New Zealand ‘digital consumer’ is also getting steadily hungrier for bandwidth and associated technology and applications but as yet is typically not able to articulate the shape of this appetite. We do not know what the next ‘killer application’ that leverages Internet technology will be, but based on the precedent of the past 20 years we do know intuitively that they are coming. Nobody foresaw the radical impact that TradeMe would have on New Zealand’s economy, but in a garage somewhere the next Sam Morgan is likely developing another ‘killer application’. the challenge for NZ Inc. In the current global uncertainty, the opportunity exists to set a course that sees New Zealand emerge from the recession stronger, relative to our trading partners, than when we went in. This will require: • A massive investment in ICT infrastructure, in particular increased investment in telecommunications networks with speed and capacity orders of magnitude greater than today, delivered to large portions of the population; • Demand-side stimulation and seeding programmes to drive awareness and education specifi cally pertaining to leverage of digital enablers to drive improved productivity; • A focus on inclusive approaches, making digital enablers accessible and affordable for all New Zealanders in order to harness the creativity of individuals from across the socio-economic spectrum and fuel innovation; • Deliberate value creation from the country’s traditional strengths through focused incubation of applied research and innovation into increasingly PAGE 6 Digital Hamilton Enabling development of a great New Zealand city executive summary weightless industries; and • Promotion of New Zealand to New Zealanders, both at home and abroad, as a home for life and work in a globalised world. equity of hamilton’s strategic framework internet access Hamilton’s strategic framework comprises a portfolio of eight City Strategies is key to an developed in partnership with other city stakeholders. These are in varying stages of accelerated implementation. Digital enablers present opportunities to underpin the city’s strategies in a number of ways: future, and this Economic Development – digital enablers will play a role in establishing a increasingly “networked city” of interconnected