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#DigitalInclusion Statement

Yesterday at the #Indigenous Focus Forum Day for Bush Broadband we were asked for a simple pitch statement for #DigitalInclusion.

Leave aside all the detail behind infrastructure policies, USO’s and Codes of conduct and the like, here’s my simple pitch statement.

“Digital technologies has the potential to improve our quality of life by providing better access to information and services, and increase opportunities through innovation, co-creation and economic opportunity.

“Together lets create an environment which is more inclusive of digital futures for regional and remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through inclusion and access.

No longer can we afford to leave Indigenous people out of the digital equity equasion. Lets create digital innovators to empower and pursue work they love in the communities and towns they love.

Lets not create another divide".

Our IDX Future

#ouridxfuture

Two months ago I had a brief yarn with Natalie Walker in Cairns about #ouridxfuture and told her that I would email her my thoughts on Indigenous Digital Excellence. Of course I would have loved to participate at #ouridxfuture but I was also invited to be a part of the Queensland Governments Innovation and Investment Summit. I opted for the expenses all paid option with 1200 people from across the globe in attendance, I think it was the right choice.

This just meant that I could crosspost from both events while posting my thoughts on #ouridxfuture here and via twitter. Being a bit of a procrastinator I have only just got around to doing this post, so with my geek helmet on here are my thoughts on Indigenous Digital Excellence and Our Digital Future.

These are my thoughts and not meant to represent the thoughts of others and be warned that sometimes they come with a grain of salt. I simply tell it how it is and it’s up to you how you take it thats what freedom of speech is all about about and we have fought for for generations.

Hope it’s worth the read and if you have any posts on #ouridxfuture I would love to have a read. More than happy to have comments and agree to disagree sometimes, that’s how innovation happens.

First things First

Some questions about Indigenous Digital Excellence Strategy to date;

How many people and communities has the IndigenousDX visited since it’s establishment three years ago.

What is the geographical representation of these communities.

How do these communities continue to be involved with Indigenous Digital Excellence once you leave these communities.

What assets were left in these community to ensure the continued growth of Indigenous Digital Excellence.

How have local Indigenous digital innovators and startups been involved in these community visits.

Seven Point Plan towards #ouridxfuture

These are just a few of the key elements that are imperative to #ouridxfuture, I am sure you have many others, but these are my key one’s;

Skilled board representation and or Indigenous advisory group on both NBN Co and NICTA or similar body.

Establishment of a National New Media, design and ITC Association.

Establishment of a national Indigenous code of conduct for digital media, design and ITC innovation.

Regional startup programs established as digital social ventures to activate digital inclusion with an imperative to improving digital literacy and digital startup.

Activating and harnessing the already skilled Indigenous professionals that have experience in the digital sectors in regional and remote areas.

Increased opportunities for Indigenous STEM Scholarships and corporate internships.

An annual tech inclusion forum lead by our mob to discuss all the opportunities for tech inclusion. Both for our mob but for minorities, women and people with disabilities (funded by the Dept of innovation)

Access and Equity

Still one of the biggest issues facing our people in #ouridxfuture is the lack of access and equity in the digital space. As you all know many people in remote and regional areas still have crap access or no access and many people in urban centre still can’t afford to connect. There are solutions but adopting them and getting everyone together and committed to a solution seems to be the biggest problem.

One solution as I see it is open wifi access, this is not the only solution by far but a a better asking providers to provide subsidies to just our mob, which I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Open Wi-Fi access, is harnessed in many countries throughout the globe and is provided FREE of charge by community organisations. Obviously security is a must when flicking the open wi-fi switch.

Just imagine a large network that is accessible FREE of charge for our mob on a national scale, where people can not only be connected but we could also use it as a national content delivery network. If done correctly we could harness this potential to deliver content to our mob in real-time while they use the network and have FREE access. It’s a another bold idea but if done correctly and with the help of companies like Telstra, we could have an national network just like Telstra AIR, but for FREE and hosted by our organisations.

This would not only provided access but could be developed and implemented as a business model that enhances digital social ventures around the country.

I for one would love to see this happen soon. Access is a human right and we need not wait for others to provide it needs to be done. My own wi-fi at home is secure and monitored and is shared so that anyone can come home and have access. Why not I’m not going to use all of my 500GB of Telstra data in one month. Why not share.

NaN networks in communities is another possible solution and could be harnessed to provide virtualised clouds in communities, with a localised data storage system in community. A virtual safeguard. Both of these seem like a pie in the sky but are achievable with the right push and the right people and organisations behind them.

Education and Opportunity

Don’t get me wrong when I say, why do we have scholarships in medical fields and apprenticeships for mining and construction when we don’t have anything for STEM or STEAM as I prefer to say.

Where are the Indigenous internships from Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, facebook, Google and this list goes on. Telstra has been doing it part in this space for a while now. How about we start of Puggy Hunter style scholarship. The David Unaipon Scholarship, funded by corporates who really want to give us a good crack at being a part of the future and ending our STEAM disparity.

Let’s make it easier for our young one’s when they are jumping on the STEAM.

Outside the Black Box

It’s imperative that we concentrate our efforts on building outside of the black box or as the old saying goes “Think Globally Act Locally. That’s what we are doing with OpenLingo, when we talk about protecting endangered languages we talk about protecting them on a global scale.

Openlingo’s implementation will be on global scale with advertising, in-app purchases and gamification to optimise earnings for language maintenance programs here on the ground for our mob. Implementation on a global scale means more clicks, which is obviously many more clicks, 10,000 clicks a day rather than 500.

OpenLingo is a social venture that will harness the global digital economy to maintain endangered languages and have a economic and social outcome for global good. We don’t want to recreate what already exists and build on a small scale we want to build on a global scale for everyone and then enhance for our mob domestically.

Let’s face it there are more opportunities building something for everyone rather the confines of the block box. If done the right way you can return the benefits domestically through building globally.

Don’t Recreate Let’s Innovate

Need I say more.

Data Sovereignty

Well, does it really exist? Of course it does!

But only if you own the network and infrastructure. This would be the optimal equation to protecting our data privacy and intellectual property. We could achieve this with a bucket load of cash and a huge amount of technical abilities in house, but for the moment you really need to trust your provider and ensure that your service level agreement (SLA) is really tight.

Even then I don’t think that this will really equate to data sovereignty. Every border every player has it own rules it plays by.

One thought that I have often had is that why don’t we use the capabilities and infrastructure of some 1,000 or so trusted Indigenous organisations to host an encrypted distributed cloud storage system similiar to what Storj does. Obviously leasing agreements and SLA would still be the key but at least it is with our trusted organisations, in our house and not with others.

#ouridxsecurity

This brings me to security. In the age of Internet of Things (IoT) and with many of our people and organisations connected it’s amazing that many of our Indigenous digital discussion people rarely talk about security. It’s another one of those imperative discussion that needs to take place along with digital literacy, security literacy is a must for all our people and organisations.

From Bluesnarfing to NCF relay attacks on mobile devices right through to the server intrusions, SQL Injections and ClickJacking I have seen it all. Purely due to the fact that they have not secure their server, devices or websites appropriately.

It’s simple really, people need to more educated and organisations need to take more care and be educated more about #ouridxsecurity

We also need more people to ensure that our people and organisations are secure and servers are up-to-date and that individuals know what intrusions could occur on there nice little handheld device that contact basically their identity and cookie cache for all to see.

Can someone please start a #ouridxsecurity.

#ouridxfuture connectivity

The biggest challenge for an #ouridxfuture is how to connect.

In more ways than one it’s imperative is that Indigenous Digital Excellence reaches more individuals and organisations, and by that I mean more than just young people. We need our all our people in our all our communities connected right across the country. To me it simply not acceptable that we get left behind in this #ideasboom race and tech and digital innovation.

And still for me it is not acceptable that there is more than often a capital city centric focus on our participation. But things are improving.

Three years ago I was very cynical and to a very small degree I still am now of Indigenous Digital Excellence but I have recently seen the light with Telstra’s partnership with Indigenous Remote Communications Authority (IRCA) last year and the implementation of the indigimob.

Congratulations IRCA and Telstra what a great leading light in Indigenous digital excellence in regional and remote Northern Territory and congratulations to the NCIE for their work too.

So we have this like two pronged strategy that at the moment includes the work that the IndigenousDX team are doing and the work that IRCA is doing, but more needs to be done to connect people to the world of digital opportunity, startup and innovation. More regional and remote areas and more corporates need to do more.

My thoughts are obvious. Turn that black box on it’s head, turn those investments into something more sustainable.

Indigenous innovation hives and incubators are as I see the way forward throughout the country that optimise the skills and knowledge of local Indigenous individuals who have expertise in the sector.

It simply makes sense, minimise travel budget expenses, optimise local knowledge and connectivity all enhanced through digital social impact ventures that provide services to local communities and organisations all guided by a digital code of conduct.

These hives would not only provide services the local community but also incubate digital startups and provide digital literacy programs and much more. It might sound like a bold idea but it’s an idea that would be sustainable and could have some ROI for companies willing to invest into these regional hives.

There would be no queen bee just a connection through a common cause to educate and empower people with digital literacy and opportunity. These hives need not be an exclusive domain in that black box again, but could harness the skills of new migrants and the knowledge of our mob to build, enhance and connect us to a global digital economy.

This is an ideation of D:HIVE and with a bit of luck and some deadly pitches might see fruition this year, and be the first of it’s kind in Australia. An Indigenous controlled digital impact social venture and startup hub that educates and empowers people for the future while providing and developing opportunities in the digital sector.

The Big Noting Part

I was fortunate enough to be lead down a career path that I determined and a passion, that included early training in digital design and that soon progressed over the years to systems administration and more.

So I am pretty profissionate whether it be doing design elements for a new brand, editing a video or taking photographs to developing a website or new app or be it installing a new network and linux server into an organisation that does not have one. It’s been a great ride so far, and I reckon these are all the skills that our young people need and more to survive into the future.

Many people often say that you don’t need the digital skills to be a digital innovator, I say in part that is true. But unless you have a big budget or a team of developers, designers and innovators behind you then you will be climbing a steep hill.

But we have a community of developers, designers and innovators that exist around the country we just need to harness and activate them to be involved in the change right across the country.

In the National Year of Digital Inclusion, my challenge to myself is to pitch this till it can’t be pitched no more and even then there will be no surrender. D:HIVE will come alive.

The challenge for all of us is to create a more inclusive and connect digital community that will be prepared for the future and maximise all the opportunities that the digital economy will bring and share in the global good that can be shared.

INFORMATION IS POWER. BUT LIKE ALL POWER, THERE ARE THOSE WHO WANT TO KEEP IT FOR THEMSELVES.

AARON SWARTZ, GUERILLA OPEN ACCESS MANIFESTO

TVWS the next internet disruption and a better solution NOW

Recently the Government through the 'Indigenous Advancement Strategy' spent $13.5m on the purchase of Wi-Fi services which will have minimum upload speeds of 1Mbps and download speeds of 256Kbps. This figure does not include the costs for maintenance or data usage.

A decision that obviously was not made with the great analysis or expert advice regarding technologies that are the future of connectivity nor more cost effective.

But of course this is only my analysis, please have a read below read below so that you can make you own decision.

If your unsure about TVWS have a click play on the video below, not the great explanation but the first video I found.

TVWS technology is a low cost solution that could be deployed here in remote and rural Australia if the Australian regulators allow it to be used.

A global leader in TV whitespace technology recently announced the third generation of its widely deployed whitespace radio solution, RuralConnect.

TVWS internet connection speeds to 25 Mbps, cover distances from 10-30 km, reduce latency, and support four times as many users per sector.TVWS has recently been trialled in India and covered a distance of 150km with speed of 5 Mbps.

It's a solution that needs to be looked and deployed into trial sites along with Neighborhood Area Networks (NAN) with cached localised servers in community delivering key network solutions.

If I was the Government I would would have looked towards the Ngara Network to see what possibilities tha could also bring to this equation.

INFORMATION IS POWER. BUT LIKE ALL POWER, THERE ARE THOSE WHO WANT TO KEEP IT FOR THEMSELVES. "

AARON SWARTZ, GUERILLA OPEN ACCESS MANIFESTO

#MakingtheConnection nothing more than another Disconnect

In all fairness and transparency you should all have a read of the #MakingtheConnection publication first. There are only some appropriate quotations here at the moment but my personal opinion post about the methodologies and publication of #MakingtheConnection will be here soon. "Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves."Aaron Swartz, Guerilla Open Access Manifesto "When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place." Mark Zuckerberg "Transparency may be the most disruptive and far-reaching innovation to come out of social media." Paul Gillin

#digital divide #IndigenousDX #IndigenousX #IndigenousX theNCIE

Smart TVs get message across to indigenous community

This a the article published on the front of The Australia IT on 17 April 2012 by FRAN FOO I note the comments by Telstra at the end.

Although seemly a smart idea that is an Indigenous lead, innovated and built system that not only delivers to Smart TV platforms and mobile devices through a proximity based Wi-Fi system, this innovative idea which could be rolled out nationally to Indigenous communities, health centres and the like has never been approached by Government or any other service provider.

Build on a base budget of $24,000 it is not only an innovation which has a social enterprise backend it is also cost effective.

Replacing traditional distribution systems SmartTV Networks is a true use of convergence technology by Indigenous people built by Indigenous people. Users can select their content based on location and can do it in New York, Tokyo or Yarrabah.

Is this the stuff Indigenous Digital innovation is made of? Well I guess I put the Questions to Nigel Scullion, you and all at BushBroadband to make that decision. Please comment and ask the question how can you further this innovation and kickstart to get it off the ground.

I note the comments by Telstra at the end of the article saying that communities could apply to the Telstra Foundation for funding. In 2013 Telstra provided $5million for Indigenous Digital Innovation to TheNCIE in Sydney

THEY'VE got the ideas, the technology exists and yet a small indigenous community in Queensland is struggling to find $24,000 to fund a simple project that would allow health and other social information to be disseminated as widely as possible.

Officials at Yarrabah, which has about 3000 people and is about an hour's drive from Cairns, initially wanted to put the vital information on DVDs to be distributed to the community.

However, an IT specialist recommended against it as a costly and outdated exercise. The content had to be updated fortnightly, which would have been time-consuming and impractical, requiring people to go around distributing new DVDs.

"I spoke to Leigh (Harris from Blackvine Media Group) who had an innovative idea," Yarrabah Hybrid Network project co-ordinator Ross Andrews said.

He said the plan was to use smart TVs to push out information. But although it worked on paper, the project hit a snag.

With six smart-TV displays around the community, the ability to send the content to mobile devices and over the internet looked promising.

However, during installation, Mr Harris and Mr Andrews realised that they required a particular hardware split fibre to create a separate network for the distribution channel (for smart TVs).

"The problem is that Yarrabah has fibre for the local council network but we need fibre connectors that can patch in and split the signal for the network and other hardware so that it will not disrupt current traffic," Mr Harris said.

He said the hardware would cost $24,000 and no one had been able to fund it.

"I have been doing this work pro bono so the initial $23,000 has gone into the network," he said.

"(I) reckon it's a real innovation and if we can get it up and running it would show what is possible in indigenous communities.

"I, for one, am sick of seeing posters and brochures that are not engaging people. (Using smart TVs) is the new way to engage people and get messages across.

"I want indigenous people to be at the forefront of the digital economy."

Mr Andrews said being able to tap into smart-TV technology would be a big boon for the community, especially for the younger generation. People aged under 25 comprised 57 per cent of the population at Yarrabah, compared with 34 per cent for the rest of Queensland, he said.

"We need the funding to complete the project. We're looking to Cisco or someone like that to donate or help. There's so much potential for the smart-TV technology . . . we could even do health checks (in private) one day."

Cisco was focused on closing the gap and putting the human network at the heart of indigenous education and community development at Djarragun College in far north Queensland, said a spokesperson. A Telstra spokesperson said communities could apply to the Telstra Foundation for funding.

Original Article

Digital inclusion and Equity in an Indigenous Space #DigEQ #auIGF

Digital inclusion and equity are issues facing more and more Australians and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are no exception. A recent Anglicare report ‘Trying to Connect’ describes deprivation of home Internet (49.2%) and mobile Internet (56.1%) in Victoria as unacceptably high. While these are indeed unacceptable figures, in remote and rural Indigenous communities the figures are even more unacceptable with home Internet at 8% accessibility and mobile Internet at 15%. The figures go even higher when we look at the extremely low access to home computers and low digital literacy, which characterise many remote and rural Indigenous communities. Access is more than just having a fibre pipe it’s about opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in rural and remote areas to improve their digital literacy and to understand that the digital space can be used beyond getting LIKES or FOLLOWERS or just being digital prosumers. Bring it to the Table A question that we all need to ask ourselves is how we include Australia’s most disadvantaged group in the decision making process when it come to planning around bridging the digital divide. How can we ensure that these discussions are being brought to board rooms and correctly represented in conversation like the one’s being had at auIGF? Where are the voices of Australia’s most disadvantaged people in the conversations about digital equity? There is a critically urgent need to find solutions to narrowing the digital divide and creating greater digital equity in Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Heads need to come together to resolve the issue in urban, rural and remote locations for all Australians. It is imperative that improving digital equity and access for remote and rural Indigenous households across Australia needs to become a national communications priority, perhaps by adding it as another ‘Closing the Gap’ target along with current targets in health, education and employment. Digital technologies are pervasive in our everyday lives; in education, healthcare employment and even retail services. Consequently, access is increasingly becoming a social justice issue and it is no longer acceptable for Australian Governments and the digital communications industry not to include our First Peoples in the decision making processes when it comes to planning access and equity in the digital space. Nor is it acceptable for stakeholders to take a one size fits all approach to digital equity when it comes to Australia's First Peoples. While, I commend Telstra for its recent generous provision of $5 million for the Indigenous Digital Excellence program at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence being run out of Sydney, I can’t help wondering whether equity might have been better served had at least some of those funds been additionally directed, in a more inclusive way, so that it would also benefit rural and remote communities. I look forward to the day when Telstra and others spreads the wings of digital equity beyond the urban South-East corner and ‘Close the Gap on the Digital Divide’ even further.

#DigEQ auIGF Indigenous

My Questions to #auigf Digital Equality: Narrowing the Participation Gap

1. How do you propose to connect the digital equality in rural and remote Indigenous communities so that we ‘Narrow the Gap’ in a sustainable way? For example, connecting with skilled Indigenous individuals in these locations to promote Digital Participation, Accessibility and Literacy. 2. How can we all, as individuals and organisations, increase the participation of Australia’s first people in the decision making process to ensure equal representation in the digital equality movement.

A SMARTER RETHINK - #INDIGENOUSDX

I begin by saying how excited I was when I first saw the initial tweet about #IndigenousDX and how important discussions like these are to ensure that our people, not just the young one’s all thrive in the digital age, which has the potential to be more than just a connection tool. It’s an important discussion that will bring options for us as a people not just to share and protect our culture with others on a global scale but particularily participate in the opportunities that the global digital economy has to offer, location free. These are some quick guiding principles that I see that come to mind when embracing and moving towards greater Indigenous digital participation and inclusion or be it #IndigenousDX. Like for a Like As like everywhere else the #IndigenousDX space is cluttered with prosumers of social networks, sharing stories and updates via their favourite hash tag or what they are having for dinner minute-by-minute. Although one of the major innovations in today society, social networks have also become a blinding tool for us as Indigenous people to what lies beyond social media in the digital spectrum. For me #IndigenousDX goes way beyond the obiquous facebook share or obtaining 10,000 or 100,000 followers. The digital spectrum has more to offer our people and it’s important that we move beyond the shutters that are blinding all the big dorris’s out there. With all the offerings that new media and ITC bring it is important that we ensure that our people become more than simple participants and prosumers, and demonstrate that we can become activators and innovators of these technologies. For me this is a very important starting points in a turn-around to obtain #IndigenousDX and we must invest here first for our future in the digital spectrum. We must educate our mob of the possibilities that it brings and allow and assist our people to 'thrive' as #IndigenousDX says, while empowering others along the way. Lets not Re-Create, Lets Innovate and Integrate Imperative to the whole #IndigeousDX discussion is that we take a look around and ABCD what already exists and not re-create and disempower what our mob have already invested time in innovating, but rather invest and empower these #IndigenousDX doers to continue innovating. A good example would be to invest and innovate ‘indigitube’ rather than re-create another space for Indigenous story sharing. Join elements together making them larger and more engaging for everyone to gather and share. Innovation does not come from re-creating what already exists but through creating something new, or embarking on the challenge of integrating things to make them better Investing and Empowering Existing Capacity It is also imperative that we empower our brother and sisters that have the skills and talent to embark on this #IndigenousDX journey, many of our mob have the skills, ideas and importantly the commitment and we should be embracing these exist skills and empowering them to help others to build capacity. Not to be disrespectful, but still much of #IndigenousDX work is still being done by non-Indigenous FIFO contractors rather than our mob, or contractors from a far which removes opportunities from our #IndigenousDX people with the appropriate skills and knowledge. To date I have seen many FIFO’s in communities that stay for a week or two and then disappear off the planet for the next six months and roll-in doing the same process over again. This leaves our people if a fray and it is seldom participants obtain outcomes out it other than than maybe a DVD or booklet that they create during that time. The strangest thing I have seen has been people coming to do training in Far North Queensland, Cape York and the Torres Straits that come from Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. Then, poof. They are gone only to turn up six months later wondering why people are no longer have interest in the project. We must invest in local people, with the commitment to projects and communities. Preservation of Culture Preservation of culture is an important part of what the digital spectrum can bring our people, but this must be well-thought-out. Protecting and preserving our culture is an imperative for us all, particularily the stories of our old people and the knowledge that they hold. But if it is done incorrectly without the appropriate skills and minds involved, including those on the ground we could face the lose of important cultural information which could be lost forever. This I have see this happen first hand with a national project where stories of old people, country and culture have been lost forever due to the lack of commitment of the team chosen to oversee the project. It’s strange but when funding vanished so do the project and the storylines, sadly enough. That’s maybe why I have over 35TB of Data, because I don’t want that to happen to my projects. I am a digital hoarder. That poses another question for me. What will happen with all the cultural data I have? Where will it go? Hmmm. These are questions we all need to ask when creating in the digital spectrum. We need to ask ourselves of our commitment in ensure that it is culturally safe and validity of the content and of our commitment Asking these questions will not only benefit our communities in the protection and preservation of our culture, but continue to share and feed the interest of a global audience in our culture. Another way of doing this would be to setup a national framework for building system like this that has codes of conduct associated with #IndigenousDX build and delivery systems. Sustainability It's important that in looking at #IndigenousDX that we also look towards building not just for us but for the globe, let think big. Let's engage with everyone, let's bring people to our platform and get them using what we have built. Let make some money, so that we can invest in #IndigenousDX projects here rather than relying on the Government or philanthropics. Lets get our heads out of the dark black corner and innovate something new for everyone. Smarter Bigger Thinking With over the twenty years of experience in the creative design and new media and technology sector I have seen it evolve into a never ending library of valuable and accessible resources (to those connect), and an economic power-house, which some say will be worth $144 billion by 2023, employing 500,000 people. I always tell people that we should be like India, get our people skilled so they can do the outsourcing here in remote and rural locations for the banks and communications companies. Maybe even Telstra. We need to be a part of this growth, which I am sure that you agree with. But the questions is how can we do it ensuring that #IndigenousDX is integrated into a wholistic approach to building National policies around the digital spectrum. Elements in brief which should be included in the scope when planning and ensure we are included on this national agenda include; 1. Skilled Indigenous Board representation and/or Indigenous advisory panel on both NBN Co and NICTA. 2. Establishment of a National Indigenous New Media, Design and ITC Association 3. An Indigenous code of conduct for Design, New Media and ITC 4. Regional startup programs run by local Indigenous organisations or enterprises for Indigenous Digital 5. Indigenous social ventures that concenrate on developing ITC and new media as a service charter 5. Increased opportunities for Indigenous ITC and New Media Scholarships at University level 6. An Annual New Media and ITC forum be held in locations through Australia funded by the DBCDE Access and equity One of our biggest issues that we still face as the a social disadvantaged group, is the "Digital Divide" which remains one of our the biggest hurdles when it comes to Indigenous inclusions and participation in #IndigenousDX. The most prevailing is the access to computers, or even Smartphones, and the next is the costs associated with access. There needs to be a solution to these important issues. Heads need to be put together to resolve the issue in urban, rural and remote locations for both black and white Australians. A simple example although not as grand as Google's Project Loon is the bush fishing line project. Where one day when I was in a remote location on Cape York we pulled a 3G connection above the treeline using a fishing line to get a connection. A very simple thing but it worked for us. Well maybe not fishing line project, but you get the idea. Another which I have often thought about about is Open Access Internet whereby our organisations opening up their Wi-Fi so people can connect. With the right security protocols put in place we can all share the benefits that Uncle Google has to offer for all our mob. My digital affliction For more than 15 years Indigenous Digital Excellence has been more than a simple hash tag or IDEA for me, it's a passion which sometime I think is an affliction which draws me up late at night stripping away code, or creating a design, or changing things when they don’t need changing or reading blogs or chasing the latest technology and inventing way we can we use them. But thats not a bad thing...I reckon... Affliction: Your affliction make you lead when other choose to follow. You create when others consume. It is our affliction that binds us. Together we will change things.

"INFORMATION IS POWER. BUT LIKE ALL POWER, THERE ARE THOSE WHO WANT TO KEEP IT FOR THEMSELVES."

- AARON SWARTZ, GUERILLA OPEN ACCESS MANIFESTO

Again Leigh Hubner creates beautiful work using a Canon 5D. These cameras a just it. on a budget you can't go past what can be done on these little muscle cameras. Sunrise weather presenter Grant Denyer set the task of getting from Cairns to Cape York on motorbike and being the first to broadcast live from the very tip of Australia. Here is a look at the week and its challanges. Make sure you check out the last 30sec of the video. Its a little behind the scenes look at how we moved out SNG and camera gear up to the very very tip. Shot on a Canon 5D by Leigh Hubne

This is just great and shows that on a budget Canon gear does the job. Mark Beretta from Channel 7's Sunrise joins 75 cyclists as they ride from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast all in the name of cancer research. Here is a 10min look at 10days of riding and a glimpse of the scenery that the riders enjoyed on their 1400km journey. Shot by Leigh Hubner Loose Cannon Films

Cairns NAIDOC March 2010. All the deadly mob that marched this year in Cairns. Sorry I could not get everyone maybe next year. Hope you all enjoy.

In the coming week a new web portal innovated by a completely Indigenous development team will be released. The first of it's kind specifically for Indigenous Australia the web portal will deliver content online and via mobile devices including articles, photographs and video and a whole lot more deliver by the the end user. The system and gateway will deliver content in real time to iphone, ipads, blackberry, HTC (andriod) and Symbian based mobile devices. Make sure you check back for further updates as this exciting new business initiative unfolds into black hands throughout Australia. Helping to bridge the digital divide in an exciting new way.

Want to take part? Here’s what to do. 1. Visit the “Life in a Day” channel and learn more about the project. Be sure to read through the steps you need to take to participate and the guidelines for creating your video(s). Also check out some of the sample videos for inspirational ideas. 2. On July 24, capture your day on camera. 3. Upload your footage to the “Life in a Day” channel any time before July 31. Regardless of whether your footage makes it into the final film, your video(s) will live on on the “Life in a Day” channel as a time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010.

Join us on 10.10.10 for an unprecedented event. Every Nation, 24 hours, and You. Across the planet, documentary filmmakers, students, and inspired citizens will record the human experience over a 24-hour period. By participating in this historic event, you will help capture the diversity of life and culture on this planet. Together we will create a document that is a gift to the world. One Day on Earth is a documentary and new media project about the amazing diversity, conflict, tragedy, and triumph that occurs in one 24-hour period on Earth. More than a film, One Day on Earth is a multi-platform participatory media project. The flagship of this project is a 120-minute documentary to be released theatrically. Through the One Day on Earth platform we will establish a community that not only watches, but participates.

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