Canberra
I bid you all very warm welcome to Parliament House - this place of gathering that belongs to every Australian.
I welcome you all to Techfest in this, NICTA's tenth anniversary year.
And I offer you a very warm welcome to Canberra in its centenary year.
I can't think of a better place to be holding Techfest because at their best, this House and this city are places of ideas.
The nation sends 226 of us to this parliament as legislators, not just to debate the issues of today but to imagine the nation of tomorrow.
Our best ideas are the ideas whose results are measured in decades.
Stanley Melbourne Bruce established the CSIRO at the same time as this city was being carved out of the Molonglo plain.
Sixty years later, the brilliant researchers at CSIRO came up with something that has changed the world called wi-fi and one those pioneers, Dr Terry Percival, now works for NICTA and joins us today.
The same concern for the future saw Bob Hawke set-up the Cooperative Research Centre program as part of his vision for the “clever country”.
In a bi-partisan spirit, I can say the same for the Howard Government's decision in establishing NICTA.
NICTA is one of the real game-changers transforming the Australian economy.
NICTA has brought scale and depth to ICT research, training and commercialisation in this nation.
Ten years later, NICTA is the largest and most successful ICT research organisation in Australia.
Last year NICTA had a stellar performance in attracting wealth and creating new jobs spinning-off four new companies and working with major companies such as George Weston Foods, Healthscope and the Commonwealth Bank to improve their productivity and competitiveness.
A Deloitte study estimates that NICTA projects will have a combined annual impact of $3 billion a year on the national economy.
Innovations conceived through NICTA are part of our everyday lives.
One NICTA invention now provides the live audio platform for major outdoor events and concerts all around the world.
Another provides the operating system for 1.5 billion mobile phones.
I know NICTA didn't come here today empty-handed; there are some amazing innovations on display here.
For example NICTA has today announced the spinout of new company, Saluda Medical, which has developed a miniature smart chip implant that will transform the way chronic pain is managed.
Today I witnessed the signing of a landmark agreement with NICTA and the global software leader, Infosys.
I acknowledge the presence of Mr Narayana Murthy here today, the co-founder of Infosys, who is also on NICTA's international Business Advisory Board.
In my walk-through today I've also had the opportunity to see a fantastic new initiative that NICTA is developing called the lens.
It's an open-access tool to help start-ups and entrepreneurs navigate the incredibly complex world of intellectual property and break down the barriers to innovation.
I acknowledge the presence of the Global Senior Vice President of Qualcomm, Roger Martin, who has come from the US today to support this initiative.
These announcements are a measure of NICTA's ten-year journey to date and the qualities that have brought you so far: ambition, curiosity and a restless search for excellence.
It's no coincidence that Techfest is the single most important event in the NICTA calendar.
The scientific mind is inherently optimistic.
Innovation is always about the future.
Always asking the question “what's next?”
In an advanced economy like Australia, that's the way it has to be if we are to secure high-wage, high skills jobs for our children.
That's the way it has to be if we are to succeed in the Asian Century.
The way we get there is innovation.
Innovation equals productivity, equals prosperity.
That's why next week I'll be making a major statement on Australian innovation and jobs.
Studies show that in advanced countries like Australia, more than half of all growth in productivity comes from innovation.
We know that growing productivity is the best way to create and support jobs for the long-term.
That doesn't happen by accident.
It comes from deliberate investments like NICTA, CSIRO, our CRCs, and the policies that go with them.
Investments and policies that help bring the future closer.
That's a perfect description for NICTA.
It's also a perfect description of the NBN - bringing the future closer.
We won't be the nation we want to be in ten or twenty years' time without universal high speed broadband.
Not half-baked, but the real thing.
Not to the node, but to the home.
Earlier this month I was privileged to spend some time with Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Sir Tim congratulated the Government on the NBN and our vision for the digital economy because he knows that the Internet is the great equaliser.
So much of how we deliver services - education, social welfare, health care, even energy use - will be mediated through the Internet and that means the NBN.
But it's more than just services.
It's about an outlook and a philosophy.
A free and open Internet served by a universal, competitive, world-class broadband market is about empowerment.
It's about choices and possibilities.
We think we understand the digital world, but we haven't even scratched the surface.
When I entered this Parliament in 1998, there was no wi-fi, no smart phones, no iPads, no apps.
But the ideas were there; the people were there; the research facilities were there.
And in those facilities, remarkable men and women were rehearsing the future that is now our today.
Here at Techfest we see the very best Australian ICT innovation and development.
And here we also catch a glimpse of the future.
We see that future not just in the inventions being showcased but in the young people present with us.
I know some of you students are road-testing the new smart phone app to that gives you a window on a career in ICT.
It's my hope that in a few years, your own ideas and apps will be showcased here at a future Techfest.
Now Hugh Durrant-Whyte, Ian Chubb and the other scientists will have lots of advice for you today.
I'll just leave you with this thought as the Prime Minister who is delivering the NBN, the NDIS, the price on carbon and our National Plan for School Improvement:
The future doesn't belong to the timid.
And no dream is ever big enough.
I warmly congratulate NICTA on its ground-breaking achievements over the past decade.
I look forward to your continued work to strengthen our economy and improve our lives.
And I proudly declare Techfest 2013 officially open.