Workshop: Role, Importance and Impact of Technological Innovation for Local Communities and Economies

Piemonte (Italy) and Queensland (Australia) experiences

The Italy/Australia co-operation


The Information Industries Bureau, part of the Department of State Development, Trade and Innovation has been working with the Torino Wireless Foundation over the past few months to explore the opportunities for mutually beneficial collaboration. These discussions reflect a desire by Queensland and Piemonte to use technology to help overcome barriers of geography, improve service delivery, enhance economic growth and provide a better quality of life.

To take this process forward the Queensland Government and the Piemonte Region will host a joint workshop in Brisbane on 4 July 2006. A delegation of leading industry professionals and researchers from the Piemonte region will travel from Italy to attend this workshop.

Workshop’s Four Themes

The workshop is intended to provide Queensland’s ICT industry, research centres, universities and incubators with an opportunity to discuss some of the latest technological developments/issues in Italy and Europe and explore face to face the potential for collaborative opportunities under four major themes. Forming the basis of individual break-out sessions at the workshop, these four themes are:

• enterprise development including business incubation and international business development projects
• research and development in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) based applications (in particular Galileo) for the mining and natural resources industry and the wider “infomobility” sector
• research, development and testing of e-health and e-security applications
• international exchange and co-operation programs between universities, including dual degrees and joint-campus approaches.