Connect the Nation Enhance Competitiveness

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Connect the Nation Enhance Competitiveness

• Presentation by
• Dublin Chamber of Commerce E City Group to The
  National Competitiveness Council
• September 2003

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Summary of Presentation

• Explain the background, purpose and objectives of
  the eCity Group

• Share our findings on the availability and usage
  of Irelands current e-infrastructure

• Introduce and debate our recommendations to drive
  enhanced competitiveness

• Outline the agenda of the Dublin Chamber eCity
  Group going forward

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Background to the eCity Group
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Conclusions of Chamber E City Report(s)

• A noble aspiration but no strategy

• Confusion and misalignment across interested
  parties

• A big performance gap

• A nation being left behind

• A competitiveness imperative

• Some recent progress but much to do

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1. A noble aspiration but no strategy
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2. Confusion and misalignment across interested
parties

• No real collaboration
• No shared fact base
• No substantive negotiations just
  representations
• A lot of noise but no light
• Suspicion on respective motives of government,
  operators and technology providers

• Multiple disconnected constituents
• Multiple private sector interest groups all
  producing different reports with no consensus on
  priorities
• Lack of clarity across government departments on
  who does what
• Inability of government to collectively deliver
  integrated strategy

• Perception that government has now resolved issue
• A clear belief in Government that the worst of
  the problems have now been addressed
• Unwillingness to be transparent on exactly what
  and where the plan is

• Confusion on government role
• Disengagement from policy for years
• Now trying to re-establish a role for itself but
  no transparency on what role
• Limited political will for forcing the agenda
  in stark comparison to many of the benchmark
  countries that we examined

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3. A big performance gap
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4. A nation being left behind
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5. A competitiveness imperative
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6. Some recent progress but much to do
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Overall recommendations to transform Ireland as
an e-nation

• Set stretching but realistic aspirations by
  bandwidth, by technology area, by region, by
  application, etc.

• Deliver an integrated, phased, costed plan with
  clear and public accountabilities for the design
  and roll-out of national e-infrastructure
  developed and owned collaboratively between
  government and the private sector

• Integrate e-infrastructure plan into critical
  national and local government initiatives and
  processes NSS, Planning Regulations, etc.

• Foster a Partnership Approach between
  government and the private sector to most
  efficiently and effectively prioritise and fund
  the intra-structural investment needed in
  backbone, backhaul and last-mile technologies

• Catalyse the demand-side through aggregated
  government demand, thoughtful incentives, and the
  aggressive promotion of eGovernment services

• Aggressively address the education and digital
  divide to ensure fair access to IT usage

• Position Ireland as a world class centre of
  competence in high quality broadband applications
  and related technology the adoption of IP as a
  unifying technology would help

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Planning and coordination recommendation
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Infrastructure delivery recommendation
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eGovernment recommendation
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Education and digital divide recommendation
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A forward looking agenda for the eCity Group

• Drive implementation of current recommendations
• Actively track and influence the ongoing
  performance of Dublin versus a critical subset of
  e-City metrics especially on the
  e-infrastructure dimension
• Help foster an environment that enables
  Ireland/Dublin to build a meaningful digital
  media/digital applications industry sector
• Bring the topic to life by showcasing Dublin as
  as e-City to the world E-Week

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Dublin e-week an overview