City Vibe
Mary Poppins is on her way!
Kickstarting the Ipswich Digital Community
The Supercalifragilistic Broadway Musical arrives for strictly limited season. Ipswich Musical Theatre Company (IMTC), which last year brought us the spectacular ‘Phantom of the Opera’, is getting ready for its biggest production yet! Mary Poppins, the Supercalifragilistic Broadway Musical, based on the stories of P.L.Travers and the Walt Disney film, flies into Ipswich for a strictly limited season. With exhilarating dance numbers, astonishing stagecraft, a little bit of magic and the unforgettable songs, this musical soars high above the rest, literally taking community theatre to new heights, as the high-flying nanny transports audiences on magical adventures. Set in London in 1910, this iconic musical tells the irresistible story of the dysfunctional upper middle-class Banks family. Mary flies in after the children write their own advertisement, ‘Perfect Nanny’. Mary is ‘Practically Perfect’. She takes the children, Jane and Michael, on magical journeys. Mary and the cast sprinkle happiness with unforgettable songs we love to sing: ‘Jolly Holiday’, ‘Spoonful of Sugar’, ‘Feed the Birds’, ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’, ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’, ‘Step in Time’ and ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’! Ipswich’s Lauren Roche plays the lead role of Mary Poppins
and Simon Drew, also from Ipswich, plays the charming song and dance man, Bert. Director/choreographer is Ruth Gabriel, who has directed three shows for IMTC. “There is nothing like the experience of a live performance”, said Musical Director, Brenda Ryan. “The magic unfolds before your eyes. The statues in the park come alive. Angry toys stake their revenge on Jane and Michael. The fabulous ‘Step in Time’ tap-number, boggles your senses, as does the manic ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!” Mary Poppins, the Broadway Musical, is on for 5 performances only: Sat. Sept 12 at 7:30pm; Sun 13 Sept at 1:30pm; Fri Sept 18 at 7:30pm; Sat 19 at 7:30pm and Sun Sept 20 at 1:30pm. For bookings phone 3810 6100 or online at www.ipswichciviccentre.com.au
BY TIM BUTLER, CONETIX, IPSWICH
With the digital economy in Australia now worth nearly $80 billion already and set to double by 2020, its impact on business and community life cannot be ignored. As technology booms, even non-technical job environments are going to change rapidly through the use of technology. Just one example, driverless cars started trials here in Australia only a month ago, and the companies developing components and software for these technologies are being rapidly acquired or licensed by companies such as GM, Apple and Google. Already the driverless vehicle industry is worth billions of dollars per year. Recently, the Ipswich City Council started a long term program to convert the Ipswich region into a digital hub for startups and technologists.This region could be a great location for digital startups and technology-focused companies. With a lower cost of living compared with Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, along with readily available NBN access and a council committed to the task, Ipswich has the required precursors for the region to become a major tech hub in Australia. However, this requires strong support from technology-based universities, so Ipswich needs to push even harder in order to kickstart a digital economy sector locally. It’s a classic chicken and egg story: to bring digital innovators to the region there needs to be a baseline digital system there for them; that “system” needs to include other like-minded companies and innovators to engage in consolidation, communication, cooperation and consultation. These stakeholders need this one-team approach to succeed, so the big question is how to kickstart the digital economy locally, to attract these initial ‘techo-seeders’. This is by no means a trivial task. In my very first full-time job in 1999 I worked for a venture capital backed company in Toowoomba. It was exciting work knowing that we were pioneers, setting the standards and changing the way things worked for online education. Being first to market provided great growth but unfortunately as the ‘dot-com’ bubble burst, the company folded, once the venture capital was pulled out. Now working for Conetix, an Ipswich based cloud hosting company, I’m again seeing the excitement of being first to market with a number of emerging technologies. Unlike other industries, we need to remain at the forefront of technology. In fact as the whole marketplace booms, we need to be two steps in front of the latest trends, which isn’t easy when you need to maintain the legacy systems as well. It’s going to be hard to measure any success in the short term for Ipswich. This is a project that needs at least five years planning and hard work to come to fruition. Even with highly skilled staff and leadership, there’s still no guarantee of success. As someone who is technology driven and enjoys a challenge, I’m looking forward to providing input and mentorship to help guide Ipswich well into the digital economy. In the end though the proof will be in the pudding. The investments of time and money by all involved need to produce tangible results. Hopefully, in 10 years time, we’re looking back and looking at how 2015 was the year in which our booming digital economy started.
MAYOR PAUL PISASALE, PROUDLY SUPPORTS THE IPSWICH MUSICAL THEATRE COMPANY PRODUCTION OF
SEPTEMBER 12-20, 2015 IPSWICH CIVIC CENTRE ADULTS CONCESSION/STUDENT CHILD (PRIMARY SCHOOL) TAKE THE FAMILY (2ADULTS + 2 CHILDREN) GROUPS 6+ GROUPS 10+
$50 $45 $25 $135 $45 $40
BOOKINGS OPEN NOW!
ICC Customer Service Centre, ipswichciviccentre.com.au Ph. 3810 6100 PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY:
Ipswich Life 9