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The gamification-sounding element of accumulating "Network Points" is pretty entertaining. Aside from that, providing $AUD100K without taking equity is nice - a

The gamification-sounding element of accumulating "Network Points" is pretty entertaining. Aside from that, providing $AUD100K without taking equity is nice - as long as the process of farming the government isn't so complex that your startup lives to regret it...

girvo 10y ago
Well doing work for Queensland Health (front-end websites and apps for marketing purposes, not client data or anything) was an exercise in absolute frustration. But hey, I'll give our gvt the benefit of the doubt for now; we have to move to a tech economy or we will fail the moment we run out of resources to pull out of the ground. Interestingly, a small data centre is being built pretty close to me in Fortitude Valley, so there is some investment going on. The Advance Queensland Innovation Summit I attended talked the big talk, let's see how well they've learned how to walk I guess!
- vacri 10y ago
  Mining is actually not the predominant part of the national income - something like 8% of GDP. We're not as dependent on it as people think. Might be different for the state of QLD though. Another way to look at it - mining has been deflating for the past few years as demand has dried up a bit, but the nation still hasn't had a recession (two quarters of negative growth).
  - girvo 10y ago
    Yeah sorry I should've been clear, I'm talking specifically about Queensland (and WA is another state that's at risk, and are were in a recession as of the beginning of this year, from what I can see). This doc is a couple years out of date, but worth looking at: https://www.treasury.qld.gov.au/economy/the-queensland-economy/qld-resources-sector.php https://www.treasury.qld.gov.au/economy/the-queensland-econo... While in raw numbers it might not seem grim, the effects from what I've seen can be rather outsized; more to the point, a lot of communities in Queensland are reliant on mining to exist at all and are struggling with the current downturn in mining investment and work (though, local effects don't generalise well, of course). The current effects are having an impact on Brisbane's GDP: "Significant drags on the Brisbane economy included Professional Services (-0.3 percentage points) and Mining (-0.3 percentage points)." https://www.sgsep.com.au/publications/brisbane-gdp-2015-2016 https://www.sgsep.com.au/publications/brisbane-gdp-2015-2016 Anyway, thanks for sending me on a neat research journey :)
- jazoom 10y ago
  Did you build the Streamline website? I was impressed by that one.

girvo 10y ago

Well doing work for Queensland Health (front-end websites and apps for marketing purposes, not client data or anything) was an exercise in absolute frustration. But hey, I'll give our gvt the benefit of the doubt for now; we have to move to a tech economy or we will fail the moment we run out of resources to pull out of the ground. Interestingly, a small data centre is being built pretty close to me in Fortitude Valley, so there is some investment going on. The Advance Queensland Innovation Summit I attended talked the big talk, let's see how well they've learned how to walk I guess!

vacri 10y ago
Mining is actually not the predominant part of the national income - something like 8% of GDP. We're not as dependent on it as people think. Might be different for the state of QLD though. Another way to look at it - mining has been deflating for the past few years as demand has dried up a bit, but the nation still hasn't had a recession (two quarters of negative growth).
- girvo 10y ago
  Yeah sorry I should've been clear, I'm talking specifically about Queensland (and WA is another state that's at risk, and are were in a recession as of the beginning of this year, from what I can see). This doc is a couple years out of date, but worth looking at: https://www.treasury.qld.gov.au/economy/the-queensland-economy/qld-resources-sector.php https://www.treasury.qld.gov.au/economy/the-queensland-econo... While in raw numbers it might not seem grim, the effects from what I've seen can be rather outsized; more to the point, a lot of communities in Queensland are reliant on mining to exist at all and are struggling with the current downturn in mining investment and work (though, local effects don't generalise well, of course). The current effects are having an impact on Brisbane's GDP: "Significant drags on the Brisbane economy included Professional Services (-0.3 percentage points) and Mining (-0.3 percentage points)." https://www.sgsep.com.au/publications/brisbane-gdp-2015-2016 https://www.sgsep.com.au/publications/brisbane-gdp-2015-2016 Anyway, thanks for sending me on a neat research journey :)
jazoom 10y ago
Did you build the Streamline website? I was impressed by that one.