CeBIT opens with Gonski innovation plea

Beverley Head
Monday, 24 May 2010 12:13

IT Industry - Market

David Gonski, chairman of Investec and also the chairman of the National e-Health Transition Authority, gave the keynote at this morning’s opening of CeBIT in Sydney, with an impassioned plea for the nation to lift its game in terms of innovation.

CeBIT Australia 2010, which has brought together 500 companies to showcase their wares, and organisers hoping they can attract more than 35,000 attendees, was officially opened by NSW premier Kristina Keneally. While the focus of the exhibition is innovation in ICT and the way that is leveraged by business and government, Gonski lamented Australia’s relatively poor international innovation ranking.

He called for continued investment in infrastructure in Australia – particularly in the area of the national broadband network and an e-health network. Although the Opposition has in recent days pledged to dismantle these and the Digital Education Revolution investment of the Rudd Government, Gonski said that “In my role as the chair of NEHTA I am acutely aware of the NBN and what an e-heath strategy could achieve.”

Completion of the NBN was essential to underpin future innovation according to Gonski.

Quoting statistics which showed that Australia invested below the OECD average on R&D, Gonski noted that it would take a further $2.5 billion spending a year for Australia just to reach the OECD average R&D spend of 2.26 per cent of GDP.

Part of the problem was that big companies were not pulling their weight. Gonski noted that the big Australian, BHP Billiton only ranked 341st on a list of the top 2000 innovative companies in the world. Australia had just eight companies on that list Gonski noted.

While acknowledging that in the past Australians might have had a “she’ll be right mate” attitude, Gonski said that this was no longer the case.