INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT INITIATIVE

Southern Grampians Shire Council Economic Development And Business Systems Teams

Digital Innovation and Smart Agriculture Festival (DISA)

Many smaller regional and rural councils are faced with the challenges of attracting investment, growing their populations, and providing their communities with the same opportunities and connectivity as their larger metropolitan counterparts. The Digital Innovation and Smart Agriculture (DISA) Festival was created to bridge this divide.

The DISA Festival is a three-day event that takes participants onto farms, into laneways, and into Smart Agriculture workshops, showcasing digital pathways for youth and connecting participants with the many practitioners of smart technology that are becoming increasingly important to the regional way of life.

The new event that began in 2019 and returned in 2021 looks beyond council boundaries to help regional Victorian communities implement innovative practices, partnerships, and technology to uplift the regions, showcasing how rural communities can and are embracing new technology to gain an edge.

DISA has been helping councils fulfil their long-term goals for the communities they serve, from reducing the digital divide between metropolitan and rural communities to nurturing local innovation and start-up environments, attracting businesses to regional areas, and retaining young talent. Learning about how technology could be applied to regional contexts and farming in 2019 has gone from being a new concept to an ingrained idea, where farmers arrived at the 2021 event looking to implement these technologies and realise the benefits.

An event of this scale was new to Southern Grampians Shire Council before the 2019 debut, but its organisers had a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve, with passionate staff and the support of leadership behind them. They worked with external partners who brought agricultural experience into the planning process, “putting them in the farmers’ shoes” to better understand what kind of event would (and would not) work for them. After a small financial loss in the first event, the following returned a profit with a growth in sponsorship and attendance, paving the way for a sustainable future.