Senator Conroy opens new Digital Productivity Showcase.
on Feb 24 2012 6:48AM
NICTA's seventh annual technology showcase attracted some 600 visitors to the Australian Technology Park.
Researchers showcased some 60 projects in areas such as health, transport and logistics, security, machine learning, software systems and digital productivity.
A Lego robot was used to demonstrate NICTA’s seL4 microkernel – a general purpose operating system that was mathematically proven to be bug-free.
Some 100 high school students attended Techfest.
NICTA chairman Neville Stevens formally kicked off the event.
NSW chief scientist Mary O'Kane applauded the alignment of showcased projects - including those in the areas of health, transport and logistics - with the state's priorities.
Professor Margaret Sheil, chief executive officer of the Australian Research Council, described its annual investment of $500 million on promising researchers and ideas and an additional $300 million on strategic projects.
Sheil said the Federal Government had spent a total of $546 million on NICTA since its launch in 2002 and "we haven't been disappointed".
NICTA chief executive officer Hugh Durrant-Whyte delivered a passionate speech on its research projects and outcomes.
He said the organisation had signed 56 new contracts and technology licenses in the past 12 months, yielding $3.5 million in contract revenue.
Across the road in NICTA's Australian Technology Park headquarters, the organisation launched its Digital Productivity Showcase.
NICTA's director of broadband and the digital economy Terry Percival described the Digital Productivity Showcase as a venue for researchers, end-users, industry and government to "talk and exchange ideas".
The launch was attended by Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, who described the National Broadband Network as a "platform" on which digital productivity improvements could be built.
Mark Paterson, director general of the NSW Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services, noted that the "digital economy" was "not just ICT and smartphones", but the application of technology to improve business.
Communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy launched the Digital Productivity Showcase in a virtual ribbon cutting ceremony.
NICTA technology strategist Dean Economou demonstrated remote video editing as an example of teleworking in the Digital Productivity Showcase.
Also demonstrated in the Digital Productivity Showcase was a video-conferencing and document scanning system that would allow people to submit forms from remote areas with the assistance of a third-party translator if required.
Terry Percival, Senator Stephen Conroy and NICTA researcher Rami Mukhtar discussed adding the ability to analyse "big data" to stock market data services.
NICTA's seventh annual technology showcase attracted some 600 visitors to the Australian Technology Park.