Australian Computer SocietyPeter Higgs, Director of Access Online Investments and I are chairing a conference at Internet World 98. I noticed from Peter's address that his organisation, Access Australia CMC Pty Ltd is based at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney. So I took the opportunity to visit Peter to discuss the conference and see the park.
Last year I visited the MFP Technology Park in Adelaide (and was very disappointed). In 1996 I visited high technology and research organisations around Cambridge (UK), and the technology park in Hobart.
My interest is in how the physical and social makeup of a technology park effects the ability to interact. The major question is: Does the park encourage informal interaction between people?. A good indication of this is if there are people talking in the corridors and a well patronised coffee shop. The deserted cafeteria and corridors of the MFP Technology Park meant it failed this test badly. The lively pubs and cafes of Cambridge were a contrast.
Please note that this report is based on a half day visit. Additions and corrections would be welcome. The format is intended to blend technological comment with a travelogue.
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Several people suggested I visit ATP, several years apart. This was supposed to be a technology park done right: not a real estate venture gone wrong, a grand pipe dream by government agencies with bottomless supplies of money, not a white elephant in the middle of nowhere, not just some multinationals trying to earn points to get government contracts.
The Australian Technology Park involves the
The ATP is being developed by the Australian Technology Park Sydney Limited, with the support of the New South Wales State Government. The project has also received financial support from the Federal Government, under the Building Better Cities Program. This is done in conjunction with City West Development Corporation.
The ATP is located at Eveleigh, to the south west of the center of Sydney, next to Redfern Station. The site is the refurbished Eveleigh Railway workshops. The workshop buildings have been sensitively upgraded to include modern new offices in the shell of the old.
The park claims to do what technology parks usually claim:
The ATP will promote and assist the development of:
- a culture of innovation through technology transfer
- new businesses in high-technology industries
- high-value-added manufacturing
- interchange of ideas and technologies
- world-class research and development
- infrastructure for new technologies
ATP has an interesting assortment of tenants from high technology companies, particularly in information technology and communications. The question is if there is any synergy between the companies by being at the ATP.
Access CMC is the Co-operative Multimedia Centre established in New South Wales. Members include Telstra, NSW Department Education and Training, University of Sydney, University of NSW and multimedia companies.
Access CMC provides a Training Room at the ATP (it was in use when I walked past) and a Multimedia Testing Centre at Crows Nest (North Sydney). They also work on issues of intellectual property for multimedia products.
Usability testing for multimedia products was a hot topic at Interact 97, hosted by the ACS in Sydney in July 1997. Access CMC face interesting challenges in adapting of more traditional software training, test and production techniques and blending them with the publishing and film production techniques of multimedia.
One of the unusual inclusions is the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (The Con). The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is a faculty of the University of Sydney. It offers tertiary programs at graduate and undergraduate levels, and non-tertiary programs through the Conservatorium High School and the Conservatorium Access Centre.
The Con's usual home in a prime location in Macquarie Street, adjacent to the Royal Botanic Gardens is being refurbished (it was designed by Australia's first Colonial Architect, Francis Greenway). Until completion in January 2000 the Con is at ATP.
While a music faculty wouldn't at first seem to fit with a high technology park, it does add an exciting atmosphere. It makes the place more lively, with young people carrying musical instruments and sound of practice sessions. There is also a reasonably sized performance hall. This adds something of the atmosphere of a university city, such as Cambridge or Oxford.
Photo: 
Tom Worthington and John Findlay using a Grouputer
As I usually do with these visits, I sent an announcement to ATP to say I was coming. One reply was from John Findlay at a Grouputer. The Grouputer is a multi-user system for group collaboration. The Australian Defence Force Academy were an early Grouputer user and I have been a subject in experimental use of the system for defence decision making.
The original Grouputer was a hardware device allowing several keyboards and mice to be plugged into one computer. Software combines the contributions of each group member and presented them on a projection screen the whole group viewed. This provides a simple, low cost way for a group to work together (other systems require a computer for each participant).
John demonstrated the latest version of the system under development, which allows interaction over the Internet. Grouputer not only sell systems, but have licensed consultants, teachers facilitators for computer mediated meetings.
The Park piloted an education program last year. John Findlay says the early results suggest complex concepts could be successfully introduced to kids much earlier. We may able to accelerate the learning process so much that twelve years of learning might be compressed to eight.
While I don't necessarily agree with (or understand) the theory behind the system, it looks like a system with potential for fast consensus building. In particular it would be interesting to see applied to on-line military decision making.
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One of the bonuses for a moderate railway enthusiast like myself is the historic Eveleigh Railway Workshops incorporated in the ATP. High technology photonic labs are interspersed, in a sensitive manner, with industrial presses and lathes.
Nearly 20,000 men spent most of their working lives at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops in Sydney’s Redfern; heating, thumping, shaping and crafting steel into huge, beautiful, steam locomotives and carriages. They serviced up to 70 locos at a time and built more than 200, which ran on track costing nearly £20,000 per mile, at a time (1870s) when the railways were uniting Australia. It was an age of unprecedented expenditure and prodigious output, of singular vision and tradesmen’s pride."Review of "Railways, Relics and Romance: The Eveleigh Railway Workshops", by Anthony Browell, 1996 Architecture Media Australia Pty Ltd.
Bleeck’s first real success as a writer came in 1936 when a series of stories featuring the character Raggles, based on a rat catcher at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops where he worked, began appearing in The Bulletin. He also wrote for various newspapers and magazines including New Idea, Woman’s Mirror and the Sunday Telegraph.Pulp Fiction ‘Sensational and lurid stories, articles, trash’ arrive at the National Library, Press Release, National Library of Australia, 11 February 1998
Locomotive 3801 Eveleigh Railway Workshops, Redfern, Sydney, NSW November 1994List of Plaqued Works , The Institution of Engineers, Australia, 17 March 1998
My interest is in how the physical and social makeup of a technology park effects the ability to interact. The major question is: Does the park encourage informal interaction between people?. A good indication of this is if there are people talking in the corridors and a well patronised coffee shop?
The atmosphere of the ATP felt right. The coffee was very good. There were about twenty people in the coffee shop, including the director. He was good enough to let me photograph him with a cafe , without having any idea who I was or why. ;-)
About the only concern I would have with the ATP is that it is a bit too lavish, with a bit too much room. There needs to be a section of the park with very small offices crammed together for low cost start-ups. The small space will make it cheaper for companies of limited means and also force them together to collaborate with their neighbours (I found out after my visit the ATP has an Incubator Service but I didn't notice it during the visit). However, one of the signs of success will be if these low cost facilities start to appear of their own accord in building surrounding the official park.
The Con in the park is a stroke of sheer brilliance, or serendipity. In any case it adds to the interest of the establishment. The Eveleigh Railway Workshops adds a further element and make for a potential major tourist attraction.
Just when I thought I would have no interesting anecdotes from the trip, I was stopped by airport security trying to board the plane to back to Canberra. The security x-ray system detected a suspicious object in my brief case.
This turned out to be my laser pointer. I carry this around for presentations and it occasionally is examined by airport security. This time it was confiscated. I was told that a pilot reported being blinded (temporarily I hope) by a laser, fired from the ground. As a precaution all laser devices were being confiscated from passengers.
A few sarcastic remarks about the likelihood of my burning down the aircraft cockpit door with a milliwatt laser came to mind, but I went along with it. I was issued with a receipt (headed "Weapons seized"). In Canberra I was handed a large package, being my pencil sized laser wrapped in a large yellow security bag.