The second edition of Future Focus magazine is out this week and enters the timely debate of connectivity. Across the edition, which highlights the potential of regional and rural Australia, journalists and commentators take a look at the role of technology, communications and transport now and into the future – and how communities can employ infrastructure to their best advantage. As Penelope Green writes in her article It takes a community: "Connectivity between regional communities and capital cities is essential for regional economic development … But it also includes information and communication technologies and we must add to that ‘social capital’." The challenges of providing appropriate infrastructure, particularly digital technology, are well known. The Federal Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, Paul Fletcher, writes in his introduction to Future Focus – Connecting our potential that economics firm Alpha Beta forecasts the NBN, once it is completed next […]