Photo credit; Angela Thomas on Flickr

Regional Development Australia Southern Inland aims to help local community organisations and small to medium businesses navigate their way around the internet and take advantage of high speed broadband with the Capital Digital Enterprise Program.

“The Australia Government has done research and the reason this program exists is because it showed that only 23% of Australian businesses have a proper online presence,” project officer Richard Everson said. “So 75% of businesses could do better online, there’s a huge potential there.”

The program will be delivered through a series of free weekly workshops facilitated by Three Sides Marketing as well as one-on-one mentoring sessions.

The two-hour workshops include topics such as:

• creating a website
• online marketing principles
• e-commerce
• online security, and
• online business tools.

“There’s 16 workshops in total and we’ll run the circuit three times. There’ll be plenty of opportunity to attend workshops over the two years,” he said.

The program is designed for total novices to those who have already ventured into the online world.

Everson encouraged local community groups not just businesses to take advantage of the program which is scheduled to run until August 2015.

“Almost every single person in Queanbeyan belongs to a sporting group or a church group or a youth group or some sort of association. Don’t think just because it’s technology, it has to be a business,” he said.

“Sporting groups can run a website, send text messages to their players if the game’s cancelled, things like that.

“There’s something for everybody.”

An Introduction to the Capital Region Digital Enterprise Program will be held on Tuesday, November 5 at the Airport International Hotel from 5.30 – 7.30pm. Workshops will be held every Tuesday after that. For more information or to book, visit www.crde.com.au.

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