In 2015, the Indigenous Focus Day was hosted on 14 July in Darwin at the Charles Darwin University Casuarina campus’ stunning ACIKE Building. The event took place alongside the Broadband for the Bush Forum IV. It attracted 75 participants and focused on identifying the obstacles to digital inclusion and the opportunities that arise from being connected. The Day consisted of an opening address from Joe Morrison, CEO of Northern Land Council, some shorter presentations and facilitated breakout sessions.
Key themes explored were affordability, accessibility, awareness and appropriateness.
A summary of the key outcomes:
- A dedicated community-driven strategy is needed to be developed to ensure digital inclusion of the most excluded group in Australia. One-size-fits-all models don’t work.
- There are many opportunities of inclusion - jobs, enterprise, language and cultural development
- Economic profiling is needed to provide evidence of the demand and benefits of inclusion
- Community and cultural ownership are critical to local engagement
- LTSS provides an opportunity, but needs to have last-mile distribution, skills development, relevant content and applications for greater inclusion.
The Indigenous Focus Day 2015 Communique can be found here:
