Video: Dr David Skellern on the future of NICTA

Founding chief executive of National ICT Australia (NICTA) Dr David Skellern will step down from his post in March 2011.

After a long career in the private sector, including the founding of wireless start-up Radiata (later sold to Cisco Systems), Skellern initially took on the NICTA role under the expectation that it would be an interim position until a permanent CEO could be found.

Instead he led the Government-funded research organisation for some six years.

Skellern said he was proud of the organisational culture that has developed within NICTA - once a group of disparate research organisations and now a single group that aims to "use research to gain competititive advantage for the country."

He has earmarked gigabit wireless broadband and road sign recognition technology for online mapping as two applications that he hoped for NICTA to commercialise before he hands over the reins in 2011.

The board of the Government-funded research organisation has now kicked off a search for Dr Skellern's replacement.