Hitnet End of Year Highlights
It's the end of another year, the tenth of Hitnet operating as a social business. We have some changes in store, read on to find out more..
We wish you all a safe and reconnected holiday period.
Merry Christmas!
Julie, Sam, Matt, Ashraf and Jimmy.
Dispelling COVID Vaccine misinformation
The challenges of distributing culturally relevant COVID-19 vaccine information to our remote First Nations communities has been well documented in the media in the past months. At Hitnet, we’ve continued to curate and distribute as many videos stories from community members culminating in the COVID-19 Vaccine Story channel (see some screenshots of our mobile app above). This has been distributed across our national network of 40 Hitnet Hubs and to our mobile app. Check out the wonderful stories, particularly in Cape York from Apunipima Cape York Health Council.
Hitnet Transition to First Nations Owners
As many of you who have followed our journey will know, we began as a humble university research program nearly twenty years ago. Then in 2012 we setup Hitnet as a social business and founding Australian B Corp. Now the time has come that Hitnet’s co-founders are stepping down to transition to First Nations ownership and control. Hitnet’s current strategic plan finishes at the end of this year which is perfect timing for fresh ideas, energy and innovation for the next phase of Hitnet.
Phase 1 - 2001 to 2011 - UQ research program – proof of concept in Cape York, then national rollout.
Phase 2 – 2012 to 2021 - Independent social business (B Corp) – innovation and further development of products and services in response to community needs.
Phase 3 – 2022 onwards – Transition to First Nations ownership and control.
Want to learn more? Send a message to Julie, our CEO for a confidential chat and briefing pack.
Learning about the Census
2021 was also Census year. We're proud to have worked with 33 Creative to develop and distribute these important resources and make sure First Nations people in remote communities in particular, are aware, informed and understand its importance.
We were particularly pleased to be delivering information in multiple Indigenous languages to break down further barriers to myths and mis-information.
Thanks to Bumma Bippera Media for the deadly voice over. Check out the 'Learn about the Census channel on our virtual hub: https://lnkd.in/gRYYmnf
Find out about the NDIS
Hitnet's CEO Julie and Partnerships Lead Matt Perfect, testing out the NDIS' Mobile Max at manufacturer's Neoproducts in Melbourne in November 2021.
There are 45% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living with disability or a long term health condition (source: First Peoples Disability Network Australia). Getting information about the NDIS and their services out to remote communities is a big challenge, particularly in the Northern Territory where 52% of NDIS participants identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (nationally this is 7%).
We’ve been working with the NDIA to develop resources to be distributed via our tough outdoor Mobile Max into two communities as part of a pilot project. Mobile Max will be setup at the NDIS office in Townsville and the council office in remote Kintore in Central West NT. The ‘Find out about the NDIS’ channel will be available through the touchscreen and via the Hitnet mobile app. Free Hitnet WiFi will enable people to connect with their own mobile devices, saving information and videos to watch at home later, as well as connecting people to local websites and apps. We can’t wait to see the response of these communities in the new year.
Hitnet team changes
Jimmy and Julie at the Puliima Conference in Darwin in August 2019 just before presenting to the conference delegates.
Since our CEO, Julie met James Olsen through the Barayamal mentoring platform in early 2018 we’ve been fortunate to benefit from Jimmy’s graphic design skills and knowledge as a Wadjigin man from the Northern Territory. Jimmy’s been working through his studies at Charles Darwin Uni and his various internships with CareerTrackers. He also recently completed a coding course with a scholarship from Indigitek. We’re super proud to see Jimmy graduate and move to Brisbane to begin working as part of the Telstra graduate program. Good luck for the future!
We’ve also farewelled one of our long standing team members, Jeet Parikh. Jeet became our inhouse software developer while he was studying his Masters of IT at Swinburne in Melbourne. He then continued with us over 5 years, integrating all of the video assets into the interactive channels for our Hubs and mobile app. He’s now moved on to the world of blockchain and it’s been wonderful to see his career flourish.
We’re now fortunate to have the skills of Ashraf Unnisa Begum as our inhouse software developer. Ashraf is also a Masters of IT graduate from Swinburne in Melbourne and brings her technical skills and eye for detail to continue developing content for our technology platform. We're so pleased to have her join our small team.