The delight on the faces of the Ennis representatives after their town was selected as Telecom Eireann's Information Age Town last night is testimony to the way in which this innovative and important competition has seized the imagination of people throughout the State. For the lucky town - chosen from a shortlist of four including Ennis, Kilkenny, Castlebar and Killarney - it means that Telecom will now provide a £15 million plus shortcut to a digital future. Telecom's chief executive, Mr Alfie Kane, announced would receive investment valued at £1 million while all those who entered will be invited to join in other valuable and imaginative projects.
It is not so long since technology was considered almost as a necessary evil. But the communications revolution spawned by digital technology has changed this bleak image. Today, we marvel at the scope of developments like the Internet and its World Wide Web offshoot. It is now normal to see email addresses brandished on business cards. Soon, no doubt, they will appear on Christmas cards and birthday cards as well.
The penetration of digital technology into the home and the workplace is the reason Telecom has decided to invest such substantial sums in this project and related activities. The company, along with many other leading communications agencies throughout the world, decided, correctly, some time ago that the future was digital. What they don't know for definite is how ordinary people will relate to these changes, what they will adopt and adapt to, and what they will reject. Will online banking become the norm with the personal computer in the home replacing the intimacy of the local branch office or post office? Will the weekly shopping take place on the Web? And, most important, will every individual see value or even care to understand the relative complexities this new world will deliver. The future comes at a price; Telecom will use the information gleaned from this major experiment to work out just what people are prepared to pay.
The organisers placed great store on the community aspects of the different applications. They were not interested in towns which had not mobilised a cross-section of local organisations, schools, services and industries. They sought a town committed to the project, from the first to the last person. The location of the applicants was also clearly important. Of the shortlisted towns, only Kilkenny could be considered close to Dublin and its relatively advanced communications infrastructure. The aim was to take a piece of rural Ireland and give it a digital facelift, in the process opening a virtual window to the world.
For Ennis, this decision is a wonderful boost. Its young and old now face a challenge which will be the envy of many other towns. Its cutting edge technological infrastructure should entice both home and foreign industrialists, creating an attractive environment in which local employment should prosper. The judges, while lavish in their praise of all the shortlisted towns, believed that Ennis's practical plans and vision for the future set it apart. But the hard work now begins of justifying the title of Information Age Town.