Our Story - History

iConnect Digital is assisting individuals and community groups within regional areas, connect via access to mobile support, loaned technologies & internet connectivity.

If you know someone located within your local area community, that could benefit via accessing free technology & freely provided tailored support, be sure to tell them about iConnect Digital. 

So who are we ? - read below about our story, history, journey and why we do what we do.

iConnect Digital can trace origins to early 2011 when community members within regional areas began a process of exploring opportunities connected to higher speed broadband internet & related technologies.

Visionary community leaders could see opportunities to explore new business models & modes of service delivery, that could tackle the tyranny of distance, provide new forms of community services, health innovations & connectivity.

Community members came together to create a vision board for Digital Futures, that ultimately led to an application for funding support via a Federal Initiative 'Digital Enterprise Program'. The application for support was successful & work commenced on the development of local area training materials, workshops & advisory sessions. The project attracted community minded volunteer advisors & supporters, offering to provide in kind expertise & resources; primarily as the initiative was supporting not for profit community groups.

As the program was supporting not for profits (including charity groups) the DEP was supported via the local community in many ways including volunteers providing their time, local businesses donating resources to support the initiative & local government councils providing in kind support. A record of time & contributions received from the community was kept.

The DEP was launched in 2012, involving The McGrath Foundation (Guest speaker, the then CEO), local area country music performer (Alyce Simmonds) & others who donated their time to support the event. Many community members came together to celebrate the launch of the DEP initiative & to support the event.  Small donations were contributed at the event towards assisting establish additional 'Breast Care Nurses' within regional areas. (*a significant % of McGrath Foundation 'Breast Care Nurses' are positioned within regional & rural communities across Australia, a legacy that continues to the present)

The DEP provided support to the community during Oct 2012 to late Oct 2014 including delivery of over 75 training workshops involving 1,000+ participants.

A key outcome was assisting NFP community groups, develop & implement digital strategies e.g. setting up websites, ecommerce, social media & connectivity tools. Over 300 entities implemented new digital approaches during the project. 

Requests to facilitate DEP events were received from many regional and rural townships. Materials & training was provided at no cost to these communities, as supporters including volunteer advisors & facilitators contributed time & expertise pro bono to the initiative. An additional 30+ digital development workshops were delivered across the region involving an additional 1,000+ participants.  

Other digital type programs provided around the region concluded & were finalised. Participants within these concluded programs, reached out to connect, towards gaining potential additional support via online resources. 

At the conclusion of the DEP program schedule well over 3,500+ connections were engaged with the initiative from across regional areas.

However, during the project it was clear many individuals we not using technology to access the internet. At the time, there was limited data to quantify the number of individuals not connecting, across the region. Research has now been completed by many universities and other organisations. 

Digital technologies are constantly & continually evolving. Where ever there is change, challenges arise, representing either issues or opportunities.

iConnect Digital will seek to identify opportunities to address needs within the community (for example avoid digital exclusion), provide proactive information & advice to encourage economic development (for example develop digital capacity) & proactively seek ways to support the community we call home.

iConnect Digitalwill continue to pursue opportunities to develop & deliver projects within regional areas, that support economic development & community needs. 

Focusing on key initiative involving connectivity to sustain community :-

Community 

#1 - Digital Inclusion

#2 - Digital Heritage, Heritage

#3 - Digital Communities

iConnect Digital team members are highly mobile & agile, so as to be able to "Meet Up" with individuals as close as possible to places where they need to access technology & the internet.

iConnect Digital comprises teams members who can meet with individuals over a coffee at a number of 'location partners' (including cafes, community halls, libraries etc.) or at a local area community 'meet up' point or else where via prior arrangement.

iConnect Digital work with trusted 'location partners' who are able to provide additional surety & certainty regarding iConnect Digital team members.   

iConnect Digital community advisors are able to come to you, even if you live 'out the road though our preference to to 'meet up' at location partners addresses.

We understand, checking internet connectivity can be something you need; hence, we can come to you. For more information, see "Meet Up Dates & Locations"

iConnect team members travel between administration offices based in Toowoomba Qld (SE Queensland), Tamworth NSW (New England) and Coonabarabran NSW (Orana). For more information regarding our credentials, feel free to call 1300 795 897 ( beconnected.esafety.gov.au ) 

For safey reason, iConnect Digital advisors work with modern technologies, that assist with tracking, training & developing innovation solutions.