Vivienne Jupp insists she doesn't really know why former Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Richard Bruton, asked her to chair the Information Society steering committee when it was established in 1996. The fact that she then became chairwoman of the resultant Information Society Commission (ISC) still seems to baffle her.
Perhaps Ms Jupp's experience at Andersen Consulting contributed to the decision. As the first woman to be appointed a senior partner with Andersen in Europe, she has a team of partners throughout Europe reporting to her on technology change programmes for government clients.
A graduate of commerce from UCD, Ms Jupp (45), has no formal background in computing or technology. Her experience has been garnered over the last 22 years with Andersen where she specialises in introducing business change through technology. She has a keen sense of the business advantage offered by new technology, and sees this as central to heightening awareness.
"I'm always interested to see how something would give you a different way of looking at things or dealing with your clients that couldn't have been conceived of in the past. With all that's on offer nowadays we are simply constrained by our imaginations rather than the technology."
Since its inception in May, 1997, it has been the ISC's task to prepare Ireland to take full advantage of the information age. Restricted to operating in a purely advisory capacity, a number of recommendations included in its annual report in February had the effect of exerting pressure on key areas of the economy.
The extensive document identified low-cost broadband communications, tackling skills shortages, and ensuring adequate copyright protection as the three main areas to be addressed if Ireland wants to maximise on the information age.
In the intervening period Telecom Eireann's control over the voice telephony network has been lifted. The Government announced IT 2000 which is bringing new computers to every school in the State, and new copyright legislation has been drafted. Other highlights have included the digital signing of an electronic commerce agreement between the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern and US President Bill Clinton, and the ISC's backing of a new technology programme, Tech TV on Network 2. The commission has invested around £80,000 in the series, a figure believed to be more than double RTE's contribution.
Ms Jupp believes the ISC has been instrumental in influencing all of these recent developments, and in particular it has been successful in bringing the message of the information age to ordinary people. Preliminary results from the ISC's annual survey made available to the The Irish Times indicate the level of Internet access here trebled in the last two years from 5 per cent in 1996, to 16 per cent in 1998. This shows Ireland is gradually coming into line with world Internet growth.
The figures also show 93 per cent of Irish people are aware of the Internet compared with 80 per cent in 1996, and there has been even faster growth in awareness of email from 60 per cent in 1996 to 86 per cent today. Ms Jupp is not surprised by this finding: "We need to capitalise on that, because email is the most pervasive application on the Internet at the moment and it's changing the way we conduct our lives."
Internet use - as opposed to access - has also risen from 5 per cent to 11 per cent, an encouraging statistic as it brings us closer to the British figure of 12.3 per cent. There had been fears Ireland was seriously lagging Britain, but it still has a long way to go to match the US which is running at 30 per cent.
"This research was conducted in August before Tech TV went on air which is commanding a weekly audience of 150,000. I would be confident it is helping greatly to increase awareness with the ordinary man on the street," Ms Jupp says.
Some 23 per cent of those surveyed said they were "not satisfied" with the cost of Internet service provider charges, and 32 per cent said they were "not satisfied" with the cost of telephone charges. Ms Jupp acknowledges there is still some ground to be made in making Internet access more affordable, particularly when 14 per cent of people with access to a computer do not use the Internet, and 24 per cent say it is too expensive.
One worrying figure from the preliminary findings is that 45 per cent of people who use the Internet are "not satisfied" with the level of protection for children in relation to pornography. The size of this figure particularly concerns the ISC because the respondents are familiar with the Internet, and not as susceptible to the hype Internet pornography often gets in the media.
Another surprise was that 42 per cent of those surveyed said they were either "very interested" or "fairly interested" in public points of access to the Internet. The ISC is already actively exploring this area and plans to make an announcement about such an initiative in a month or so, after the survey results have been published.
High on the ISC's agenda now is encouraging large organisation's to provide continuous IT training to their staff. In conjunction with the employers' organisation, IBEC, from January the ISC has planned a series of conferences and seminars around the State aimed at encouraging small and medium enterprises to embrace electronic commerce.
"I think we have to get enterprises in Ireland to be e-enterprises in an e-economy. We're getting there with the infrastructure but we have to keep getting costs down. Given that Ireland in the past lacked the key resources necessary to be a leading participant in the industrial market, when it comes to e-commerce we can lead, and research has shown Ireland is more positive and perceptive than other nations to e-commerce," Ms Jupp says.
She firmly believes it is the role of the ISC to encourage and cajole people into taking on tasks which will improve Ireland's prospects in this direction. The biggest challenge, however, is making the application of new technology relevant to people's businesses and lives.
"It's like I got my Dad a PC for his 70th birthday. I made it relevant to him by including Omar Shariff's bridge programme. Now you can't get him off the thing. You have to be able to visibly demonstrate to people what the technology can do for them, and there are still thousands of initiatives that have to be executed on behalf of Ireland Inc."
