Digital Cities Conference so far

The Digital Cities conference has been very good so far. There are well over 100 people here with almost every major local body represented plus many from industry.

Fran Wilde has been excellent as Chair, telling local bodies they need to treat this as core infrastructure and talking about the successful public/private partnership in Wellington which led to Citylink. Kerry Prendergast also spoke on the Wellington example.

David Cunliffe gave a very good speech highlighting the funds Government is making available for local bodies to use as part of the broadband challenge. He took questions for an extended session and demonstrated good commitment to making this happen, while realising that this is still a modest start.

Southland District Mayor Frana Cardno spoke on the work they are doing in NZ’s largest (by land area) territorial authority.

The highlight to date has been Richard Naylor, Citylink’s founder. He spoke about their corporate policy of:

These rules are for the guidance of Officers and the binding of fools

and also his views of roads:

The road is just a temporary cover for underground services!

Priceless.

Ernie Newman from TUANZ has just made the point that fibre is to a country today what roads and railways were 100 years ago.