A 21st century infrastructure?: Broadband, daily life and an Australian digital economy

When: 5-6 pm, Tuesday 16th March followed by drinks and nibbles
Where: Brown Theatre, Electrical Engineering (Building 193), University of Melbourne
RSVP: ipp@broadband.unimelb.edu.au by COB, Wednesday 10th March

ABSTRACT: When the Commonwealth Government announced the National Broadband Network in April 2009, in addition to being confronted by a massive civil engineering program, they were confronted by the challenge to make high speed broadband relevant to all Australians. Remaking the internet into an essential service for our homes, offices and school and also into a meaningful part of our daily lives and rituals is going to take a lot of work. This work must be grounded in a strong understanding of Australian every day practices, as well as the possibilities and problematic of new technologies. It will also need new forms of policy, regulation and stakeholder management, as well as new metrics and analytics for measuring progress and success. This talk examines current Australian socio-technical practices, and the prospects for a digital economy.

BIOGRAPHY: Named one of the top 50 most creative people in Business (Fast Company,) Genevieve Bell is an Intel Fellow and director of the User Experience Group within the Intel Digital Home Group. Bell joined Intel in 1998 and has come to lead an R&D team of social scientists, interaction designers and human factors engineers to drive human-centric product innovation in Intel's consumer electronics business. Prior to joining Intel, Bell was a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. In 2009, she was South Australia¹s 15th Thinker-in-Residence and her work investigated the barriers and drivers for broadband adoption. Born and raised in Australia, Bell received her bachelor's degree in anthropology from Bryn Mawr College in 1990. She received her Masters and Doctorate degrees in anthropology from Stanford University in 1993 and 1998, respectively.
--------------------------------------------------
Mitchell Harrop
Interaction Design Group Coordinator

Interaction Design Group
Department of Information Systems
The University of Melbourne
--------------------------------------------------