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Australian network specialist MIMP has won another prestigious industry award, this time for a wireless network between two Adelaide zoos that will pay for itself within a year through improved productivity.

Adelaide-based MIMP connecting solutions won a NECA (National Electrical and Communications Association) award in SA, in the Environment & Energy Efficiency category, for delivering a cost-effective low impact communication solution that links Adelaide Zoo with Warrawong, a recently purchased property that could not even get a fast broadband connection.

Established in 1969 by revegetating dairy land with native trees and shrubs to attract native animals and birds, Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary contains 14 hectares enclosed by feral-proof fencing. Once the fence was completed, the bird population flourished and the release of many native animals began, including the elusive platypus. Today, it is home to 100 species of birds and many native mammals, most of which are nocturnal and highly endangered.

When the Royal Adelaide Zoological Society (Zoos SA) took over management of Warrawong, its only connection to the outside world was a low-speed 256 kilobit-per-second service at a very high cost. None of the business applications required by Zoos SA could run efficiently while Internet email was non-existent.

Dean Calvert outside his new Payneham officeAustralian small business technology expert Calvert Technologies has again reached the finals of the Microsoft Australia Partner Awards (MAPA) – marking its fifth consecutive appearance!

Calvert is nominated for the Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year award, with the winner to be announced next week at the annual Microsoft Australia Partner Conference at the Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre. The conference runs August 23-25.

From nearly 12,000 Microsoft partners across Australia, Calvert is also the only South Australian company that appears throughout the 21 award categories.

Calvert Technologies is an Adelaide-based company that specialises in providing IT support and consultancy services to small businesses. The Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, which focuses on providing quality solutions that don’t “break the bank”, is currently experiencing record demand.

Impress Media Australia has slashed more than $500 from its annual power bill by replacing 80 fluorescent globes and tubes with LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lighting at its office.

The lighting overhaul also eliminates the need to regularly clamber up and down stepladders to change light globes as LED lights are predicted to last for 50,000 hours each – that’s more than 24 years of 40-hour working weeks!

While LEDs have replaced incandescent and fluorescent bulbs for many uses, such as traffic lights, flashlights and reading lamps in recent, the availability of compact fluorescent bulbs and fittings increasingly make them the best long-term choice for commercial and even residential lighting.

The Social Enterprise WorkshopA pioneering South Australian program to boost business skills for social entrepreneurs, The Social Enterprise Workshop, aims to launch itself throughout Australia during the next two years.

In an environment of increasing social need and limited government funding, innovative thinking that leads to the creation of new social enterprises, is the future direction for the not for profit sector.

The August launch of The Social Enterprise Workshop (TSEW) will make a significant contribution to the development of the skills needed by not for profit organisations to turn their good ideas into successful social enterprises.

The TSEW is a variation of the highly successful SA Enterprise Workshop modified for the not for profit sector. The SA Enterprise Workshop, since its inception in the 1980s has created many entrepreneurs with the program being the foundation for many of South Australia’s small, medium and indeed some large enterprises.  Acknowledged as an extremely successful initiative, companies formed by graduates of the SA Enterprise Workshop have generated more than four per cent of the State’s GDP.