Last Thursday I attended a meeting in Parliament organised by Eurim, a cross party group on the information society.We were discussing the recently published Digital Britain paper.
Anyone interested in IT and involved in the industry should read the management summary of this document, as it lays out the governments strategy for building our digital infrastructure. Why?
Isn't this just a collossal waste of tax payers money?
Well no. It will create jobs that will help stimulate the economy and it will leave us with the infrastructure Britain needs to compete in the 21st century economy and by applying IT to the delivery of public services we can get a better services, such as when we renew our tax disk and as tax payers we can make savings in public expenditure.
Warwick and Leamington are set to benefit from this. We have several large IT organisations & creative industries within our towns. We have the kind of towns that attract the skills to take advantage of this new economy.
Of course the interesting debate is, who will pay for all of this. My view is that private enterprise should be encouraged to build as much of this as possible. After all the internet has evolved soley through the private sector with little government involvement. Though where government needs to assist is with training the skills needed and investing in difficult to reach parts of the network.
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