THE PwC Chair in Digital Economy at QUT in Brisbane uses an ancient university term to describe a role that is all about the future. For a start, one person will not sit in that chair – it is a collaborative chair, and the first to be set in place in Australia.

There are many people – researchers, technologists, business leaders, futurists, students and even political leaders – who will rise from that ‘digital chair’ to help shape the digital transformation in Queensland. 

Sponsor PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is clear about why Brisbane’s QUT campus is the ideal base for this initiative.

“Of all the cities in Australia, I can say that Brisbane and this region of South East Queenland offers by far the most collaborative environment we see,” Trent Lund, lead partner for PwC’s Innovation and Digital Ventures sector said at the launch event on April. “That gives it a huge advantage as the digital world is all about collaboration.”

Brisbane’s Chief Digital Officer, Cat Matson agreed, saying the digital chair built upon and expanded the city’s digital strategy.

“The chair is an ecosystem,” she said, “it’s not one person, it’s a collaborative team.”

Ms Matson said the PwC Chair in Digital Economy was an important and timely development for Brisbane, which could take a global lead in digital business development. She said Brisbane already had a range of global leaders in digital business – naming online accommodation leaders Wotif and Fruit Ninja mobile game developer Halfbrick Studios among others – but there were other early stage digital companies coming through that needed support to realise their potential.

“It is a challenging new business world … we have to find ways to get companies to market fast,” Ms Matson said. “After all, we don’t have five years now to get a new product to market; we have a few months before it is copied or overtaken.”

Associate professor at QUT, Rob Perrons, who has been the acting PwC Chair in Digital Economy during the establishment phase, predicted the region could become a global leader in the development of digital business.

“This (chair) has been set up to ‘keep it real’,” Assoc. Prof. Perrons said. “We believe we can dominate in many of those subsets (of the digital economy), particularly those in which we have a lead at the moment.” He mentioned Brisbane’s collaborative environment for innovation as a significant advantage that the digital chair could help accelerate and connect with new markets.

“How about innovation as a service?” he challenged the launch audience at QUT on April 23.

Queensland Government’s Assistant Director-General for the Digital Productivity and Services Division of the Department of Science, IT and Innovation, Andrew Spina said the government was right behind the digital chair initiative. 

He said it would help the Queensland Government to both participate in and lead the state’s digital transformation.

“The government has to lead in digital innovation,” Mr Spina said, “and companies will follow – but then we get out of the way.” He said the government was developing a digital capability model and had made a number of initiatives to assist the sector recently – especially its new policy that allows direct procurement from Queensland ICT companies up to a value of $500,000.

PwC Australia CEO Luke Sayers said digital technology was “absolutely fundamental to Australia’s prosperity in the years ahead”.

“Our own PwC research shows innovation and digital technologies together have the potential to increase Australia’s productivity and raise GDP by 3.5 percent and $136 billion over the next 20 years,” Mr Sayers said.

“In order to make the most of this opportunity, we need students and researchers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. For this reason we are delighted to be able to partner with innovative organisations like QUT in working towards securing Australia’s future.”

The PwC Chair in Digital Economy is a joint appointment between the QUT Business School and its Science and Engineering Faculty.

“The rapid development of the digital economy has the potential to have as big an impact on our work and society as the industrial revolution,” QUT School of Management head, Prof. Rowena Barrett said. “We are in a period of profound change and the chair will play a key role in researching how new technologies can best be harnessed to take full advantage of the opportunities in the new economy.” 

QUT School of Information Systems head, Prof. Michael Rosemann, said the chair would have a research and advocacy role focused on industry engagement, policy development and thought leadership.

“We want to move from watching the digital economy to understanding it,” Prof. Rosemann said. “We want to help replace fear and entrepreneurial faith-based decisions with fact-based decision making.”

He said the chair would help to academically and strategically “lead the development and application of research-informed policies and the design of a curriculum that benefits the emerging generation of talent”.

www.chairdigitaleconomy.com.au

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TANDA, the Australian company that has developed globally successful cloud-based time and attendance systems, is hosting its inaugural Brisbane Open Data Hackathon event on April 17 and 18.

Tanda is hosting the Hackathon at its Brisbane headquarters in celebration of the milestone in reaching the 300 client level in Australia alone. That client list impressively includes Telstra, IGA, Nike, Toll, Subway, Red Rooster and Australia Post. 

Partners for the event include Idea Network Australia, UQ Computing Society, QUT IT Club, QUT Maths and QUT Code.

Tanda has announced that all proceeds made from the event will be reinvested into communities at universities in Brisbane, including Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and the University of Queensland (UQ).

“This is part of the Hack it Forward initiative Tanda wants to spur on,”  said Tanda customer success agent Adam Lyons, who is also a judge at the event. “Tanda understands the start-up scene in Brisbane is reliant on the power of young minds.

“By donating all proceeds back to universities, Tanda ensures investments are made for the potential of future entrepreneurs and collaborators.

“Hackathons inspire creativity, entrepreneurship and sharing ideas in the start-up community.”

Although Tanda is still regarded as just emerging from its start-up phase, it is wanting to ‘give back’ to the Brisbane technology community at an early juncture. Tanda got its break when it won the QUT Bluebox Innovation Challenge and this was rapidly followed by a Brisbane City Lord Mayor’s Business Award last year.

The Open Data Hackathon will begin at the Tanda headquarters in the business strip of Fortitude Valley, then move to Brisbane’s River City Labs where participants can experience the full treatment River City Lab’s space has to offer.

The Open Data Hackathon will have two judges to assess the competition welcomed through Tanda’s doors, Tanda’s Mr Adam Lyones and Keran McKenzie from well-established accounting software group MYOB, who has more than 20 years experience in product innovation. 

“Tanda welcomes him with open arms for coming all the way from Melbourne to help push Tanda Open Data Hackathon participants to the limits,” Mr Lyons said.

bit.do/tandahackathon

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THE testing phase of www.digitalqld.com.au (Digital Queensland) is offering a taste for how powerful the final version is likely to be in helping Queensland businesses to build capability across a range of business issues.

The brainchild of Queensland-headquartered Digital Business insights (DBi) group – and supported by business news and information from Business Acumen magazine – Digital Queensland is a world first in the way its fully connected business and economic database can be used to benchmark businesses and funnel useful information to business leaders. 

Underpinned by almost 60,000 in-depth business surveys and analysis of Australian businesses of all sizes, conducted by DBi over the past 14 years, this foundation version of the site is being used to show its potential as an evidence-based knowledge resource for business leaders.

DBi chief executive John Sheridan said the areas of the site open to public viewing at the moment provided an introduction to business leaders, educators, researchers and government leaders. Even in its basic form, Digital Queensland features in-depth video presentations from experts – all people identified as leaders in their fields through the DBi research – that examine more than 100 business challenges DBi’s research identified as top-of-mind for business leaders.

Mr Sheridan said feedback on Digital Queensland had been swift and positive, even though the site was intentionally “flying below the radar, really, at this stage”.

“The feedback we have been getting from people we have told about it, who are leaders in their fields – CEOs, business owners, HR experts, technologists, academics, researchers and leaders in government – are very, very positive and supportive,” Mr Sheridan said. “These are people who really know what they are talking about and they can see straight away where this is headed and the power it represents for business and economy building.”

Mr Sheridan said the next phase of Digital Queensland would introduce a video magazine ‘channel’ offering insights and solutions to the issues and challenges facing Queensland businesses – facilitated in alliance with Business Acumen magazine.

Digital Queensland will steadily progress the introduction of business ‘toolkits’ along freemium service lines. Based on what is being learned through Digital Queensland, Mr Sheridan said other planned industry and region-specific sites will be established over the next two years – and all benefit from being “interconnected” and communicating.

“This has never been done before, anywhere in the world, and we are becoming more confident that this platform will become one of the key catalysts for business and regional development in Australia,” Mr Sheridan said.

“We are designing this innovative platform to help business to deal with disruption, lift its gaze and actively begin to turn things around in ways that have only been possible with the onset of the digital revolution.”

www.digitalqld.com.au

www.db-insights.com

www.businessacumen.biz

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THE FIRST hospital in Australia to offer fully integrated, digital e-health capability was opened to service Queensland’s Hervey Bay area in December.

St Stephen’s Private Hospital, operated by UnitingCare Health in Hervey Bay, has been created by expanding the regional hospital with a new, three storey inpatient hospital with 96 acute care inpatient beds and three additional operating theatres. 

The hospital’s digital features include patient, community and medical web portals, and information linkages with Hervey Bay Public Hospital, medical practitioners, other UnitingCare Health hospitals, universities and diagnostic providers.

The patient-centred clinical systems include automatic record feed, automated care pathways, alerts, and medication management.

The Federal Government has provided special authorisation under Section 100 of the National Health Act 1953, to enable St Stephen’s to undertake a ‘Paperless Prescribing, Dispensing and Claiming Trial’. Instead of paper scripts, all medication transactions will be done electronically.

Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton said St Stephen’s was a world class hospital which showcased the future of health care. 

“St Stephen’s has raised the bar for all healthcare providers by embracing the technology literally before the foundations were laid,” Mr Dutton said.

“It will be a showcase for the improvements that e-health information technology can make for health care and patient outcomes.

“Digital technology can make health care far more efficient and more effective for patients and providers.

“Given the demands on our health system – from an ageing population, rising levels of chronic disease and ever-rising consumer expectations – creating new efficiencies is essential.”

Federal Member for Hinkler, Keith Pitt said having the first fully digital hospital in Hervey Bay was a huge benefit to the people in the Hinkler electorate.

“State-of-the-art facilities such as these enable regional people to stay close to home when ill or injured,” Mr Pitt said.

“This facility will create new jobs and attract medical specialists to our community.”

The Australian Government provided $25.9 million for the construction of the new hospital building and $21.2 million to equip the expanded hospital with state of the art eHealth technology.

“My department will continue to work with St Stephen’s to monitor the effectiveness of the electronic system, and pick up on the benefits to inform future changes,” Mr Dutton said.

“We will use the lessons learned from St Stephen’s paperless prescribing, dispensing and claiming trial to refine the hospital electronic medication chart, which will soon be in widespread use in Australian hospitals.”

Electronic medication charts will start to be introduced in private and public hospitals this financial year (2014-15).

“This is a great example of the major contribution that private providers, including not-for-profit operators, make to our health care system,” Mr Dutton said.

Wood & Grieve Engineers (WGE) were contracted to provide electrical, mechanical, and vertical transportation services at St Stephen’s including critical engineering systems such as power supply and air conditioning.

A WGE spokesperson said, “Digital technology is seen as the future of healthcare – patient health records and results are updated and accessible on tablets and mobile devices throughout the hospital, personalised food and medication can be managed electronically and practitioners can log in at any time to see what a patient is doing in real time without the need for chasing paper charts throughout the system.

The technology-focussed St Stephen’s project necessitated an innovative approach to engineering. According to WGE’s electrical section manager, Ashley Holm, the biggest challenge was “to come up with an engineering design that was resilient, reliable and user friendly”.

He said reliability and practicality were key drivers of the project’s success. The on-site data centre and air conditioning systems required particular attention as full functionality was essential even during power supply outages.

The entirely digital hospital design used over 300km of fibre optic cable. To ensure system resilience, WGE provided full redundancy in the fibre optic cabling and ICT power infrastructure to minimise downtime and future proof the facility. 

“Close and continuous engagement with the e-health designers as well as the client’s operational team helped us to realise an effective design solution that will serve the hospital well for the life of the facility,” Mr Holm said.

“Being part of a digital hospital design team was a fantastic opportunity to work with a multitude of stakeholders from different backgrounds. The collective goal of delivering Australia’s first digital hospital really gave the team a tremendous incentive and helped to foster a collaborative project environment.”

www.health.gov.au

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