Nicole McMahon, Head of Government, Telstra Enterprise: So government have an ambition to be a leading digital economy by 2030 and move all services online. As we are going forward it's really important to understand how technology from a capacity, from a connectivity and from a security perspective, plays that important role in helping the digital economy
The interaction isn't face to face anymore, all the time, we don't have to travel for that one meeting. It is unparalleled, uncharted times and you know the interesting thing is - how do we respond so that Australia can participate in the digital economy?
The threat of security is unprecedented, we're seeing more attacks more frequently at levels of government, business and consumers. So we really need to be mindful about securing all aspects of the digital economy online, because if you take part of it out then you're actually impacting Australia’s abilities to succeed and be that leading digital economy.
We did some research last year that highlighted that there's around 90 billion dollars that could be gained by 2025 for Australia to be a digital economy and that equates to also around 250 000 jobs for our country, that is significant.
Telstra have an amazing role in keeping Australia safe but also enabling the digital economy. So we've got Australia’s largest network, we're investing in rural and regional Australia, we're bringing mobile networks to this country. So, we're actually working to bring that capability to help our government, customers, businesses and citizens.
As the digital economy is thriving, we're seeing more people move away from cities and into rural and regional areas, we've spent eight billion dollars over the last five years on our mobile networks and three billion of that has been in regional Australia. That means we're able to focus on jobs and skills in Australia for Australia, we're able to bring capability into the Australian market that actually solves solutions for Australia.
I’m passionate about the fact that what we do actually impacts the lives of Australians and we have the ability to change those for the better, so we've got the ability to help those in rural and regional Australia. We have the ability for our children to grow up safe online and we have the ability to help with the economic recovery of this country and I think that is pretty remarkable. And that is the key role that a technology services company can play in enabling the digital economy and enabling Australia’s future.
Telstra.com/government