 Hi, we're at the Mobia Garland Library and Cultural Resource Center, how I... Maybe not, we'll try that again. The Mobia Garland Library and Cultural Resource Center, our IKC. Everyone comes into the IKC at Mobia. The IKC is really great for people especially at Mobia because we don't have any mobile coverage. They come in here to yarn old stories, traditional stories. Kids come here to play with toys or just relaxing here while their parents are on the computer. They read books in here. Then the IKC is also a keeping place for any old object or artifacts that we find laying around in the area here or on the island or even at sacred places, sacred sites. They get to bring the stuff here and kept here in the IKC as artifacts for future generations to see. It's a great help for the community to educate themselves in our culture, in our way of living and also get into literature about other countries and about the world. For those who have not used or have not gone online or used iPads or computers, there are books that they would read and get to know about other places and people. I've put up photos on the blog that were like, I'm not sure, 100 years old or something and that got a lot of people talking. Some have commented on the blog but some have just been bringing it up in conversations that they were really fascinated to see photos on the blog of Mobia that long ago. It gets conversations happening about the history of Mobia. At Mobia we do really have a very sort of, I'd say, very important role for Mobia because they tend to call Mobia like the motherland. I think it's nice that Mobia is where people at Mobia are posting to the blog because a lot of people around Torres Strait really has ties back to Mobia. So it's really nice to show people what we're doing at Mobia and the history of Mobia because most of them have never been here, like the ones that were brought up down south on the other islands but do call Mobia home. So it's really nice to just show them what we're doing here and what's been happening and what's happened in the past. Our culture is very unique, same as every other culture. It's very unique in their own way and I'm very interested to know other people's culture but I really love my culture and how we've been doing things for a long, long time. Nowadays we take pictures of anything and everything every day and I, for one, believe that taking pictures of everyday things, it doesn't seem important now but it will be in the future. And I think the ICC has been playing that role as a mother but for the community to come and study history and get to know other historical places here at Mobia and then further their horizons to the Torres Strait and Australia and then global. We still have people catching up on emails. They haven't used email before but now that they know how to use the email system they come in every day regularly and just type away their addresses and bang, they go on to the email and some even use chats and Skype. Technology is really no problem for us these days. It helps the kids with their reading. It helps the adults with the technology side of things because I'm here to help them with whatever they do on the computers. And with the older ones that have probably trouble remembering stuff, they come in here and look at photos of when they were young and that sort of hooks up their memory. Nowadays if we wanted to, there's a lot more exposure, like the dance team can put pictures of themselves on social media sites. There's good and bad with technology these days because we have a lot of cultural protocols that I suppose the young aren't aware of, the young ones. I think it's a great privilege that all this technology can coincide with cultural values and cultural knowledge that we have used for many years and how it coincides with iPads and the programs that they give us on these machines and to see culture and technology both come together and to benefit, I suppose, into the future. To have that technology right here at our fingertips to make people sort of keep in touch with the world I guess because it is changing, technology is coming in, it's coming in at a fast rate and we have to keep up with it. Some of us are culturally orientated I suppose and we don't want to get involved with technology but unfortunately technology is coming through and we have to keep up with the time so to speak. Look I am very privileged to be here on behalf of the State Library of Queensland and I am also here representing the Indigenous Knowledge Centre so hopefully what you have just seen on that video has given you a taste of what an Indigenous Knowledge Centre or an IKC can bring to a community and within the network of 23 IKCs Mobiag is a bit of an exception. From the time that it opens in the morning you get people rushing in wanting to access the books and magazines, cultural resources and increasingly we are seeing people needing to access the technology resources that are available so that they can manage their digital lives. Now families are using social media and Skype like Uncle Signet mentioned just to stay in touch with friends and family that are on other islands or that have moved down to the mainland and we are also seeing a huge uptake of the adults accessing the technology resources to do things that you and I take for granted like internet banking or shopping online and they are accessing the full buying power of the internet people are buying designer clothes and food that is not available at the tiny shop that is on the island as well as technology devices and recently we have seen such an uptake of tablet technology that most houses now have two or three devices and kids are learning to use these devices as young as one and two and three years old. Now there are daily literacy activities that happen at the IKC and the kids that are read aloud to each other or to the group are rewarded with 15 minutes of computer time to play online games there is a good incentive for you. Now Sainte the IKC coordinator who we saw in the video she also encourages the kids to use the iPads for constructive learning activities whether it is accessing interactive books like the Total Books which involve traditional tourist straight stories and songs or taking the iPads and going down the beach and making little mini movies of their daily adventures whether they are fishing or they are weaving. Now Mobyag is one of 20 Queensland communities that is supported through the project agreement for remote indigenous public internet access or what you will hear me call RIPIA and in its fifth year the technology resources that have been provided through the RIPIA project have permanently changed the way the Mobyag community interacts with the world using her iPad, Sainte Snaps pictures of community events and shares them on Mobyag IKC section of the customized blog built at ikc.org.au and I could stand up here and talk to you all day long about how Mobyag IKC is a vibrant community hub but we've got 20 minutes and I see him watching me over there so I'll invite you to go online to the IKC blog at Mobyag.ikc.org.au So maybe the question is at the NDF why am I coming to talk to you about IKCs? Well these days almost every element of the IKC has a technological component whether it's digital video digital books, digital magazines everything is going digital and there's a continual shift toward more and more digital interaction both locally and with the world as Uncle Signet was describing in the video now I get that it's getting toward the end of the day and everybody gets a bit fidgety and I see you all with your devices so I don't mind if you're using them while I finish my presentation as long as you're at ikc.org.au reading the stories and enjoying fabulous we've got two there, awesome now where are IKCs located? They are in very remote Indigenous communities across Queensland so in 2002 the very first IKC opened at Arab Island and it provided information services that were never before available to a community like this six years later the IKC opened at Hopevale and the IKC coordinator at the time very excitedly stood up and proclaimed to her community we began with the message stick and we continue now with the memory stick they were ready to embrace technology so as we gather here today the newest IKC is being opened at Warrabah Island that little twinkly dot at the top of the map and it's going to provide the community of 250 people with a full suite of digital technologies from computers to iPads to leapfrog tablets for the kids everything has gone digital and the community is ready for it now as you heard Signet say in the video IKCs also act as small museums or community keeping places to store their heritage materials through improved digital literacy and internet facilities in the IKC people can access heritage materials through online databases belonging to institutions and use that online content to develop their communities contemporary and their heritage collections one of the projects that's run through the IKCs we call picture culture and picture culture is a digital archive which enables people to create their own multimedia virtual museums and through community controlled process culturally sensitive information can be preserved and stored in discrete digital spaces where access is actually determined by the content owners at Palm Island IKC the center coordinator there spends almost all of her time researching and collecting information about the island's turbulent history her extensive archive of historical photographs film clips, documents and artifacts is preserved digitally which has enabled her to curate interactive exhibitions that highlight the importance of remembering past generation struggles and triumphs using resources available at the IKC the coordinator has also connected with expert researchers from across Australia including national museums and federal institutions her recent exhibitions for NADOC and the Palm Island Open Day which was focused on bringing tourism to the island received rave reviews from everyone on the island and the visitors they went viral for lack of a better word and for additional photos of the exhibitions as well as some little known facts about Palm Island you can when my slideshow catches up to me exhibition happening there check out palmisland.ikc.org.au now as many of you probably know Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been studied and photographed, researched and written about by all sorts of anthropologists and linguists and historians basically everybody and as a result there are massive amounts of documentary heritage existing in government departments and museums libraries, archives, galleries and even in private collections and while some of this has been made available to the communities until IKCs were there there was no safe place to sustainably keep that local collection assisting communities to recover and retain their documentary heritage is an important task of the IKCs and together with community created content this forms a unique collection that's accessible to all the members of the community one example of this comes from Woodrow Woodrow IKC where the elders are working toward identification and repatriation of hundreds of historic images that date back to the 1800s the images were recently gathered from a private collection and they were unseen by the community the images depict traditional life and cultural practices and now they're available for the community to browse at the IKC and of course to follow more on this story you can visit www.ikc.org.au now I want to talk to you a little bit about culture love culture love was first conceived in 2008 and now it's recognized as a fully flexible culturally attuned arts program with, for and by communities what it does is it achieves inspiring arts and cultural, social and community outcomes and partnering with state library culture love is hosted through the IKC during school holidays involves children and young people with their families and with their elders local artists, cultural and language workers are employed and mentored by visiting arts workers and facilitators and it increases the local skills and confidence to combine traditional arts with digital techniques culture love workshops have produced multimedia resources and they record communities traditional and contemporary knowledge using various art forms and digital technology recently culture love was hosted at Hopevale in October 2013 and culture love there is a prime example of just how far communities have come in their ability to plan and execute culturally themed events which give children increased confidence and digital literacy skills aptly named singing culture the event focused on the community's rich musical heritage and involved numerous elders the local musicians were paid to facilitate the workshop and gained a new understanding for the importance of working with children got a young Bruno Mars there working together the group composed and recorded an original song the Hopevale culture song which highlights cultural elements that make children proud to call Hopevale their home throughout the week long workshop children worked together to record news flash video updates that they posted to the IKC Facebook page and the children also assisted with video recording several of the performances at the weekend concert and what's important to note here is that making videos no longer requires a filmmaker to be brought in from the outside to record the activities that have happened during the week simply by introducing the right technologies we've empowered the people in the community to use their own voices to tell their own stories for more details on that one check out Hopevale.ikc.org.au now recently we've developed a special section of the IKC blog and we're calling it Our Stories Our Stories features the works and videos developed through culture love and other literacy programs and they provide shared access to relevant material across the network of IKCs and beyond one of the things you'll find there is Island Treasures which was originally published in 2011 which came with learning and cultural notes that were distributed to schools across Queensland and beyond and the animations were collaborative group stories that were told by children from the Torres Strait Islands and Mabiyag, Moa, Arab and Boygu also there are Cape Treasures with stories from Cape York communities from Injunu, Lockhart River, Pompara and Wujawujal and what you've just seen on the screen there was the page for Stories Under Taguy where traditional stories shared with participating children by the elders of their communities centered around the Taguy legend and how the warrior Taguy came to be a part of a constellation in the sky and the project was held across six islands in the Torres Strait so there's a lot of good video content there and some e-books and all sorts of good things now this is a technology workshop so I'll talk to you a bit more about technology and as I mentioned IKCs are not just community and cultural hubs they are technology hubs so it all started way back in 2006 and that was the first introduction of computers into the IKCs it continued on as online public access libraries training from 2007 to 2009 and that offered ICT training in communities where there was an IKC and people started to get interested in technology now building on this success the IKCs were recognized as the on the ground implementation method for RIPIA Remote Indigenous Public Internet Access so through that State Library assisted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander councils to provide communities with reliable internet connectivity for the first time community training and technical support followed coordinators of the IKCs received intensive ICT training to enable them to provide peer support to ICT activities and a customized resource of how-to videos is available online at connect.ikc.org.au and now many of these video tutorials were actually created by the IKC coordinators themselves and what that does is it provides this online training from a known community person in their language at their pace it's designed to make people comfortable and the feedback that we've got from communities is quite incredible now each of the RIPIA communities has between three and seven public access computers they've got a staff computer they've got a massive multifunction printer scanner fax thing they've got wireless access they've got a filter for all of their online transactions and things and they've also got iPads now in its newest iteration RIPIA 2013 to 2017 the project's primary focus is the delivery of accredited training in either certificate one or certificate two in digital media and technology so communities can access accredited training for employment outcomes they're also provided with more casual non-accredited training but this also provides the building blocks of understanding to work toward more intensive training and accreditation just this year two workshops were hosted in Cairns and the majority of the 21 participants successfully completed 80% of the units toward their certificate and just last week I was lucky enough to be in the northern peninsula area and we delivered a week-long intensive workshop called BushTech and the workshop created a simulated ICT help desk environment where participants learned the ins and outs of computer hardware how to install and customize operating systems and how to use various software packages an emphasis was placed on giving the trainees the ability to research and problem solve on their own and they were confronted with several real-life ICT issues which they were tasked to resolve everybody loved the workshop at least that's what they told us and many of them were requesting more training even when the week was over and they were exhausted and now these people can feel confident and comfortable resolving their own issues and they're people that other members of the community can approach when they need to resolve their own ICT issues with their laptops with their iPads we've got a second workshop BushTech workshop coming up in Woodall-Woodall in the new year and I can't wait for it also coming up in 2015 we have an e-business workshop hosted on Thursday Island and that's going to focus on the skills needed for accreditation and employment outcomes through web-based businesses so when all this onsite training is finished the participants stay in touch and continue their individual learning pathways toward completing their certificates how else? Facebook now I guess from training in new technologies to simply providing internet access IKCs assist people to navigate their way in this new digital knowledge society the high standard of digital literacy training provided through IKC network enables Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders to share their experiences and perspectives with the world particularly through things like Facebook and internet-based social media communities now know how to create, preserve and share their unique cultures, histories and their indigenous knowledge and that's it so you've got more time? Perfect timing, we've got time for some questions Yeah, that presentation just made me smile actually it was great, thank you so much Right, so if we could have somebody manning the mic on that side on the stand please and we have a mic runner First question Kia ora, thanks for your thanks for sharing today I'm Mati, I'm from Tuhoe I work here at Te Papa What I'm interested in is what is one of the community over here presenting to us no disrespect to you but I think when you're talking indigenous knowledge I think it's only right that they present that to this type of forum and that's not to take away what you guys are doing which I think is really great but I just think it's an interesting observation it'll be like me going to Japan and talking about Japanese I totally agree with you as the comment I have there and unfortunately we ran into a few obstacles because the RKC coordinators aren't employed by us they're employed by the council so we're there to support them but their actual local council employs them and I guess it was a bit difficult to enable them to come over to New Zealand so here I am, I hope it was alright I would, as the State Librarian of Queensland and certainly I think Tyler's done a fabulous job of representing the work that's going on in the RKCs he expressed to me exactly your point before giving the paper that he was concerned about being a white American talking about indigenous cultures in Far North Queensland so the point's absolutely taken but he's right that it's very difficult for us to actually encourage the councils that are not very well funded to support that kind of activity and if you do want to make contact with any of the RKC coordinators and talk to them about what they do jump on the blog all of their content details are there if the stories that are online aren't enough for you just send them an email and establish that direct connection because that's the whole reason that I'm here is to see the amazing things that are happening in New Zealand and hopefully make some connections between what we're doing at home and what you guys are doing here A question from Sydney I think this may have to be our final question and then we'll have a coffee break Thanks, Leigh Thanks very much Short question I hope there's a short answer and tweeted it out but are there any urban based RKCs that support relocated Aboriginal populations? Not currently We do have Curl Dargan which is based in Brisbane which is where the State Library headquarters is and that's kind of a central hub for all of the urban Indigenous there in South East Queensland it gives them an opportunity to connect back to the more remote communities and has a whole myriad of services that are provided through Curl Dargan not quite as intensive as what's in an RKC but that's because people in urban communities have access to a lot more services than what people are in remote communities do Thank you very much everybody It's coffee time now and just join me in thanking Tyler once again for bringing all that wonderful digital goodness all the way from Northern Australia Thank you Coffee time