Hitnet Update for 2021

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A well overdue update on what’s been happening with Hitnet in 2021.

The year began with the ‘completion’ of our pilot project in the Solomon Islands. With reports written and presentations delivered, we’ve started something small in the Pacific with the potential to scale into a unique digital platform.

We believe that travel restrictions imposed by COVID-19 enabled us to develop a more sustainable and impactful solution. We’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in learning more and potentially supporting further expansion of this platform, particularly international NGO's working in the Pacific.

You can read more about the pilot project’s successes, challenges, lessons learned and what's next from our CEO’s brief writeup here.

An important new partnership

Managing a national network in some of the most remote parts of Australia is not for the faint-hearted. Hitnet has this year been working with Towcha Technology to transition this service into their capable hands.

Towcha are a Supply Nation Certified business owned and run by Alan Holmes, a Gubbi Gubbi man. The word ‘Towcha’ is a significant Gubbi Gubbi ancestral family name, and the essence of the Towcha Technology brand, proudly connecting its origins from First Nations people with today’s sophisticated team of skilled technicians. We look forward to an ongoing seamless transition of the Hitnet digital platform to their support team.
We’d like to also take this opportunity to thank our previous network managers HumanIT for their great support over the past five years.

2020 Hitnet Highlights

As we know 2020 was a year like no other we have experienced. We’re firm believers that out of threats (COVID-19 shutting down many of our Hub sites), come opportunities (the development of our Mobile App with ThoughtWorks Australia).
2020’s Annual Highlights report is also going to be different in that we’ve developed an infographic! Thanks to our graphic designer James Olsen's creative skills we’ve transferred many of Hitnet’s varied data points into a visual diagram. For a close up, download from here. Let us know what you think!

Inclusive Digital Services roundtable

Hitnet has been a member of the ‘Technology and Wellbeing Roundtable’ run by Reachout and Telstra since 2014. Each quarter members gather nationally to share the latest innovations and insights around the impact of technology on people’s mental health and wellbeing. This quarter’s event was the first virtual gathering and the topic was ‘Inclusive digital services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’. Hitnet was part of a panel discussion alongside Infoxchange, Telstra and the Black Dog Institute.

Hitnet’s CEO Julie Gibson and graphic designer James Olsen discussed some of the inclusive design we have done around both of our scalable digital platform and the content on the platform. Innovations shared included our tough outdoor hub ‘Mobile Max’, our new Mobile App, the community’s My Place channels and co-designed mobile landing pages.
Key take-aways from the session were that co-designing inclusive services takes time, incorporates different ways of thinking and should be done from the start and throughout all stages of the design process. It’s definitely not a ‘tick a box’ approach.

National Reconciliation Week

Leilani Darwin from the Black Dog Institute was the keynote speaker at the roundtable and as a proud Quandamooka woman one of her most powerful comments was that ‘truth telling is not a criticism but a way forward’ for reconciliation.
We've just come to the end of National Reconciliation Week, with this years theme being 'it's more than a word and takes action'. However National Reconciliation is an important and ongoing activity that requires more than lip service, so how are you going to take action? Here's some suggestions with twenty actions for reconciliation in 2021, thanks to Reconciliation Australia.

Finally, some inspiration for the weekend with a Guardian article about how strategic burning combines modern technology with traditional Aboriginal knowledge – and generates income through carbon credits!

Thanks for checking in to see what we're up to.  Please share this newsletter with your colleagues and networks to help us achieve our vision:

To build vibrant, healthy and digitally capable communities, engaged in the digital economy all over the world.

Julie Gibson