Prior to the summer period, with financial assistance from invest Northern Ireland who have played a critically positive role in helping the initiative gain momentum,  a study report was completed. It  identified a number of target activity areas which, when combined, will enable Northern Ireland to realise the full potential of the digital platform to achieve economic and social uplift and growth. The potential of a high speed fully accessible broadband enabled digital platform is recognised at a global level as a key enabler of growth. On Sunday 19^th September, the United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union accepted the recommendations of the UN Global Broadband Commission (www.broadbandcommission.org ) which has representation from many of the leading corporations, academic institutions and international organisations.  And earlier this year the European Commission published a key policy document A Digital Agenda for Europe.

Both of these documents highlight the benefits of access to a digital platform and the importance of taking a proactive approach to ensuring these opportunities are fully realised. The DNI2020 programme is engaged with both of these  activities, and indeed at this stage the work we have undertaken over the past months, means  our preparation is ahead of the game which makes the potential of the next phase of the initiative even more exciting, as agility will allow us to exploit this advantage.

Over the past few months a small set of initial activities have been progressing. Of note is the work of Ilex on the Derry Regeneration initiative, where the digital agenda is a key integrated part of the overall plan, which was launched last week.  Work is also in hand in Coleraine and some parts of Belfast, and in the action phase the intention is to generate actionable digital strategies for all key urban centres (this follows the well known principle of programme management – what gets planned is what gets done).  Several Town Hall sessions have been held and more will be planned in the coming months.

Whilst having a core platform is of significant benefit, it is only when we have an efficient and effective environment which allows individuals and businesses to gain easy access to the platform, that the full benefit will become a reality. Several trial projects are underway with the goal of making it easy both for the customers and the suppliers to ask for and to deliver services which exploit to the hilt the platform.

A trial Pathfinder project has been kicked off in the Digital Media area, and its progress has confirmed the real benefits of taking the proactive approach which the DNI2020 initiative is all about. In addition discussions are underway on a number of potential investments which will enhance the capability of the platform.

Involvement in international initiatives and organisations over the past year has confirmed to me the real potential we have here in Northern Ireland, to leap frog into a position of leadership over the next two years. Whilst we will never be the biggest Digital Economy on the planet, what we intend to do is create the conditions and capability where we are seen as being the preferred pace to create Knowledge Economy enterprises. An important part of these will be to ensure that the benefits of the Digital Northern Ireland will be available to all sections of community, particularly he young, old, inform and vulnerable. The DNI2020 Action pan proposal has social inclusion as a key element of its goals.

So whilst it has been a quiet summer on the airwaves, the DNI2020 programme has been beavering away at the local and international level to create the conditions for the launch of the Action part of the initiative. At the end of the day, this will only work if it becomes an initiative with wide support and involvement across all sectors, business and social, of Northern Ireland. To this end the intent is to create as widespread a net of involvement and participation as possible.

I will finish with the phrase which appears on Fat Face clothing, which I think summarises very well what we are about.

                It is never too late to be what you could have been

To realise this, it will be critical to engage directly with people at the community level, both in the business areas and also community services areas. To start this process, we had a Town hall session in Coleraine which was attended by upwards of 140 local people in which we discussed the potential of the platform to local businesses. We have also been working with a small set of specific areas, to test out the process of connecting up business parks, getting increased access capability through to community service projects and ways of accelerating the availability of high speed access to significant parts of the residential population.

The feedback has been very positive, and this has been confirmed in discussion with people overseas and potential investors and local businesses. The next step is to turn this potential into real benefit. The report referred to above will set out proposal for how to do this and also a top level plan of the action steps necessary if we are to transform Northern Ireland into one of the world’s leading knowledge economies over the coming years.

This is no idle ambition – we do have the potential to extend the benefits of the digital platform, to the benefit of everyone in Northern Ireland. In the weeks ahead the plan is to complete a set of briefings, continue progress in areas such as Digital Content, ICT and Community Services, develop strategies to accelerate providing people with the skills to benefit from this opportunity in their lives, deliver initial high speed connections and start engaging with potential new investors, and to resource and initiate the follow on plan to the initial work already underway.

An update on activity over the past two weeks follows. This has involved a series of meetings with different players and building a better understanding of the extent of the IP core platform which acts as the starting point for our exploitation drive.

Community Meetings – Meetings have been held with Council Executives and Development Board people in Londonderry and Coleraine. The Derry meeting included representatives from Strabane and Donegal. In Belfast, a meeting was held with community representatives from the West Belfast Development Board (a meeting has already been held with the Executive of the Business Park in Greater Shankhill.

At these meetings we discussed prospective projects for these areas, both in community terms and also potential business initiatives. Derry is looking at how best to exploit the Business Park estate, target business initiatives and the possibility of a data centre development.  Coleraine is looking at one of the more advanced projects at this early stage, the Venture North initiative and other business opportunities. West Belfast is looking at developing a focus around activity at the Royal Victoria Hospital site, and also developments at the community level and St Mary’s college complex.

Whilst at early stages, all of these communities are profiting from the focus created by the completion of the Kelvin link, to proactively ensure they benefit, both economically and socially from the potential offered by the communications platform.

Over the coming weeks, meetings will be held with other community bodies.

MATRIX

The Telecoms sub thread of the DETI Matrix project held its third working session. This is looking at how the industry sectors identified in the overall matrix study have/can benefit from the investments made to date. The output of the Matrix sub thread will feed into any follow on activity. The DNI2020 project and the Matrix study group are working closely together.

Business Sector Activity

Meetings have been held with players in finance, media, data centre developments, ICT and education. Further meetings are being scheduled, the aim being to build a good level of understanding of the full potential of the DNI 2020 platform and also a good understanding of business priorities. Out of this work will come a set of recommendations for initial target areas, two meetings of the Digital Media study group are being held this week.

Meetings have also been held with executives from the Titanic Quarter, with focus on accelerating local fibre deployment and potential data centre opportunities. On data centres, a meeting was held with the Yahoo Executive responsible for operations across Europe, executives from Google and also executives from the data centre sector in RoI. In addition, a meeting was held with the Utility Regulator to discuss power issues.

A set of meetings has been held, with more planned, with Telco operators to discuss how to address high speed local loop service delivery. This will be a key element of any follow on study.

The study is still at an early stage, but by the next meeting we should have an initial set of target areas which could form the basis of any follow on activity, to accelerate exploitation of potential. It is also anticipated that some activity will be kicked off before the completion of the study phase. In the coming weeks we will also be looking at key future international links.

Access to a high speed, high capacity, secure and robust communications infrastructure is one of the key enablers for a knowledge economy and indeed any 21st century national economy which has ambitions to grow and prosper in the decades ahead. It allows businesses to interact, it provides access to world markets, it enables active collaboration across a range of fields, improves and reduces the costs of health services, provides a platform for education and upskilling and has the potentially to generally improve a nation’s quality of life. Big claims I know, but none the less true. But none of this will happen without a proactive approach to grasping and exploiting the opportunity we have before us. In the weeks and months ahead, a number of initiatives will be launched, with the support of the Digital NI 2020 project. It is not a substitute for action on behalf of businesses, communities and individuals, rather it is there to help all of these entities launch their projects and encourage them to set high ambitions and then strive to exceed these.

In the weeks ahead we will be launching a blog, which I hope will become a multiway dialogue. This communications platform can serve all of the areas of Northern Ireland, and working in collaboration with the platform in the Republic of Ireland make the island of Ireland a first choice destination for global knowledge businesses, and the envy of the world in terms of health and education services.

In the words of one of the most famous French writers of the end of the 19th century, « To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream, not only plan but also believe ». This is the challenge – to the deliver the dream of a connected world, with Northern Ireland acting as one of the leading hubs.