news The Ipswitch City Council has selected IT integrator and consultancy Accenture to progress what it has dubbed its ‘Smart City’ Transformation Strategy and Implementation Plan, as the Queensland City seeks to take the next step in its own development.
Ipswich is located in south-east Queensland, about 50 kilometres from the Brisbane central business district. It currently has about 190,000 residents, but is projected to more than double that over the next 15 years. It was traditionally a major coal mining centre, as well as hosting manufacturing operations, but is seeking to transition its economy.
In a statement issued this morning, the city’s council said the new Accenture-backed strategy would develop and deliver an innovative blueprint to optimise city operations, enhance community engagement, cultivate digital technology capabilities and lead economic innovation.
“Ipswich is one of Australia’s fastest growing regions and has earned a reputation as a progressive and motivated city,” the statement said. “Accenture will focus on identifying and developing future strategic direction to maintain and improve priorities for a safe, connected, productive and liveable city.”
Mayor of Ipswich, Councillor Paul Pisasale, said the initiative is about connecting city services to new digital realities, forming innovation clusters to create jobs and a vibrant economy, and utilising data to anticipate, mitigate and prevent problems faced.
“We are a city which leads by example, embracing the positive impact of technology and digital trends for the benefit of our local businesses and community,” Pisasale said. “We really believe that digital cities are better enabled by digital governments who are not afraid to adopt a more human-centred approach in order to better serve their citizens.”
Accenture was selected to deliver this engagement on the basis of their extensive global ‘Smart City’ strategy experience, industry knowledge and digital and analytics capabilities.
Catherine Garner, Accenture’s Health and Public Service Lead for Australia and New Zealand said, “Rather than proposing a product driven, technology-centric solution, we have embedded our consulting and strategic approach around the vision and needs of the Ipswich community. Innovation is at the heart of a strong economy. When done well, it keeps a city competitive, cutting edge, creates jobs and maintains a high standard of living.”
This announcement follows the launch of the Council’s community digital innovation hub last month, Fire Station 101 – which is enabling Ipswich to harness digital technology to improve engagement between businesses, citizens and city leaders, manage their assets more effectively and create innovative public services.
opinion/analysis
I’d be interested to hear from any residents of Ipswich or the surrounding areas as to what they feel needs to be included as part of this strategy.
Image credit: Ipswich City Council, public domain
Labelling Ipswich as progressive is a little misguided. We’re stuck with basically the same council every term and they kowtow to property developers at any stage, place or prospect.
Ipswich has good positives aside from that though. The city centre and surrounding suburbs are nearly all FTTP NBN, the distance from BNE is not too far, the air is clean and the people are generally positive and welcoming.
Firestation 101 is a strange concept. Reeks of political stunt but we’ll see. I’m very skeptical when it comes to this council.
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