Comms Connect Sydney hailed a success

The first Comms Connect Sydney conference and exhibition was a tremendous success, with exhibitors, speakers and attendees all making the most of the event.

Held in the refurbished historic engine workshops of the Australian Technology Park, the conference brought together experts from the public safety, law enforcement, firefighting, mining and energy, M2M, satellite, security, networks and other communications fields.

The keynote addresses, as expected, were a highlight of the occasion. Rod Gilmour, Chairman of the NSW Telco Authority, gave a fascinating insight into the work of the organisation and the progress that it has made since it was established about three years ago.

Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons gave a very informative and entertaining presentation on the work of the Rural Fire Service, and spoke at length about the communications needs of the service. He also gave an overview of how the service is using social media to get information out to the public in times of emergency, providing some illuminating statistics on the rise of dependence upon social media and the expectations of the public.

Lance Valcour, representing the Law Enforcement Information Management Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, once again enthralled the audience with a presentation on international developments in public safety interoperability … having a lot to say about both the differences and similarities of various jurisdictions, and drawing many parallels between circumstances in Canada (from whence he hails) and Australia.

Several dozen companies were represented in the exhibition hall, and it was plain to see that there was lots of interaction happening between exhibitors and attendees. Your writer spoke with most of the exhibitors, who all said they were either pleasantly surprised with how successful the exhibition was, or not at all surprised, having expected it to go well.

There are only a few months to go now until the main Comms Connect Melbourne event takes place (30 September - 2 October). If you haven’t started booking your tickets yet, now would be a good time to do so - it promises to once again be a huge success, just like the first Sydney event.