CeBIT: Day Two highlights

Electronic government took centre stage on the second day of CeBIT Australia 2007 in Sydney.

Addressing a packed crowd at the e-Government Forum this morning, Ann Steward, chief information officer for the Australian government, said there was more work to be done in embracing the Web.

"We in government understand the need to keep our services up and running ... particularly as we put more and more of our services in the online space," Steward said.

Meanwhile, special minister of state Gary Nairn said blogs could be the next frontier for governments to discuss plans and policies with citizens.

Also speaking at the e-Government session this morning, Nairn said blogs could represent a "new era" in community interaction as the government develops more online services.

On the jobs front, Google said it will search the US for IT workers to staff the search engine's growing operations in Australia.

Later in the day, New Zealand government CIO (chief information officer) Laurence Millar cautioned Australian counterparts about rushing to embrace Web 2.0 technologies, citing concerns over content quality and public attacks.

Millar said the New Zealand government was "cautiously enthusiastic" about the second generation of Web technologies, but had identified areas of concern for governance.

Meanwhile, ZDNet Australia held the inaugural Emerging Technology Innovation Awards in conjunction with CeBIT. Taking top honours was a product from Consulvest Australia dubbed Dead on Demand Digital Shredder.

The "shredder" is a portable, easy-to-operate device that securely erases hard drives in decommissioned computers at many times the rate of existing disk wiping technologies. "It's how James Bond would wipe his hard drive," said Consulvest executive director Jorge Silveira.

Eds note: Readers who couldn't attend the event can access ZDNet Australia's photo gallery.