A town of the future

"We have a team of 12-year-olds working on the website" says Mr Richard Wynne, the chairman of the steering committee for the bid. "At first people would see them running around the place, thought it was a game or something. Now everyone knows."

The community benefits of a town intranet, and the availability of shopping and services through this on-line system.

IN ITS quest for the information age, Castlebar hit the ground running, rallying Mayo Associations across the globe to the cause. When locals organised a 400strong public meeting to plan its submission, they roped in Castlebar people in Dublin, by live video conference.

"There's a huge diaspora constituency for Mayo around the world, and we're playing to our strengths," says Mr Frank Greene, president of the Castlebar chamber of commerce.

Since April, the town has had a drop-in information age office up and running in the centre of the town. Inside are six gleaming computers with pentium microchips, linked to the Internet. It is also equipped with a digital camera, and there have been reports of bemused foreign tourists being photographed, then sending "digital postcards" back to their offices.

The town has its own site on the World Wide Web - at www.castlebar.ie - complete with virtual yellow pages and a street-bystreet business, arts and tourism directory.

"We have a team of 12-year-olds working on the website" says Mr Richard Wynne, the chairman of the steering committee for the bid. "At first people would see them running around the place, thought it was a game or something. Now everyone knows."

One of the criteria set by Telecom Eireann was that there should be a high level of awareness and participation by ordinary people of the information age competition.

"That's why, unlike other towns, we didn't employ consultants. We felt it had to come from people themselves," says Mr Greene. "So we put our report together at little or no cost."

"We have the chamber of commerce, the county council, the schools, the churches, really the whole community," Mr Greene adds.

And by shrewd use of a local controversy, even couch potatoes now know what's going on. During the wrangle over unlicensed television deflector signals, Castlebar's transmitter was prevented from broadcasting some channels. The information age town campaign produced its own information video, and broadcast it, 24 hours a day, on the empty frequencies.

The submission itself bordered on a similar style of hard-sell:

"Like Ireland, Castlebar has a reputation that is bigger than its size. A microcosm of the country with every conceivable service and utility available," the document says. "The pioneering spirit of Louis Brennan, the inventor of the modern submarine, still permeates the town."

"The town has a strong historic tradition, from 1798 to Michael Davitt to the promotion of one of its citizens to the post of EU Commissioner, yet is grasping the future."

The community has known diversity, the document argues, with the closure of the Travenol pharmaceutical plant, and had to fight hard to get its Regional Technical College.

"Such a town should be Ireland's information age town because it has shown time and time again that it is able to rise to new business challenges, is not afraid to confront change and recognises the need for renewal," the document says.

In short, the submission claims, Castlebar people love technology. It has an above average penetration of telephones, is already on the Internet, has a highly computerised general hospital process in almost 1,000 electronic transactions a day and several businesses already doing a substantial trade on the World Wide Web.

The town is particularly proud of the Mayo Alert system, which was conceived and developed in Castlebar.

"Mayo Alert is a voluntary, non-profit making company using modern communications technology to help elderly and vulnerable people in Castlebar and the greater Mayo area," the application says.

"The system incorporates an `alert help' through phone line connection to a 24-hour monitoring station, a hands-free answering system, a panic button or pendant capable of being worn by the individual which operates even when some distance from the main telephone, a two-way speaking facility," it explains.

Whenever someone presses their distress button, they are immediately linked to trained victim support personnel. The take-up of the system has been very enthusiastic, and already over 300 units have been installed in the region, according to Mr Wynne, and the system is soon to be marketed nation-wide.

The town badly wants to win, says Mr Greene, for a number of reasons. The information age will reduce the importance of Castlebar's geographic location, on the wild west coast of Ireland.

"We see this as a glorious opportunity to eliminate the distance factor," he adds. "It will bring Castlebar to the centre of Europe."

It would provide Telecom Eireann with a new paradigm for fast-track installation of information age technology and a major new revenue stream from towns all over Ireland, he argues.

Mr Wynne's steering committee lists among the benefits:

Improved communication within the community due to better access to phones, faxes, voice mail, the Internet and the like.

Better communication between family members at home and abroad through e-mail, and the creation of a "virtual Castlebar and virtual Mayo" on the World Wide Web.

The community benefits of a town intranet, and the availability of shopping and services through this on-line system.

The boost to tourism and business, attracting people to the town from all over the world, through optimum use of information technology.

"The main thing is to give the next generation a head start in what is basically the second industrial revolution that's happening now, the information age," says Mr Greene. "Ireland missed out the last time, well we're not going to miss out this time." This is the first in a four-part series examining the contenders for the in- formation age town project. Part two will appear next Monday.