..or at least the lessons learned

Responsible adults must be vigilant lest the vile and unscrupulous prey upon the most innocent and vulnerable members of society. I refer of course to IT salespeople selling things to governments.

On 9th August 2010 all Victorian children had the day off school, as thousands of educators gathered to witness the launch of the $300m “Ultranet” – a “portal” for teachers and students to share schoolwork, images and interact with one another, safe from the evils of online pornography and bullying. It crashed immediately and never recovered.

Subsequent investigations revealed a corrupt tendering process, but this misses the bigger picture: If Governments were good at tech they’d be tech companies. In the modern world competence and reward can find each other easily, without state husbandry.

Years later, I asked some teachers about the Ultranet and they rolled their eyes, saying “Oh God everyone just uses Edmodo”.

Edmodo was developed by..actually I don’t know, and no one cares. Like Wikipedia and Google Maps it works, and is free. No government could have predicted that. What governments do is shoot billions of dollars of your taxes down the drain with the speed of a thousand urinating wildebeest.

And it’s happening again with the NBN.