Tag / future jobs

by brandsa2018

Artificial intelligence a game-changer for future jobs

From complex software systems that sort through medical data, to drones that monitor crop health, South Australian industries are embracing the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and cutting edge technologies.

International AI expert Dr John Flackett says SA is well placed to adopt AI and machine learning in health care, defence and agriculture sectors, providing new job pathways for future generations.

According to Dr Flackett, an AI researcher and co-founder of start-ups koolth and AiLab, we’re ready for the transformation but need to ensure we have policy and regulation in place.

“We have a really forward thinking start-up economy in SA and we have people interested in innovation,” he says.

“There are some fine opportunities for using AI, if we look at space, agriculture, tourism and healthcare. Having doctors look at hundreds, even thousands of x-ray images to try and spot cancers or health issues, when we can train machines to do that work in a fraction of the time.

“But I think it’s really important that when we apply AI to sectors such as healthcare we don’t take the human out of the link totally. When we’re using AI tools and techniques we have to think carefully about the way we’re using the technology.”

Dr John Flackett’s Adelaide-based AiLab assists individuals, academia, industry, communities and governments worldwide on how to navigate the complex field of AI.

The gradual take-up of new-tech is slowly making its way into workplaces, with the demand for AI talent set to grow in the state as entrepreneurship and innovation become key career opportunities in the future.

A number of industries and businesses are already thriving with AI and machine learning technologies including Adelaide-based company Presagen which recently raised $4.5 million in seed funding to market its AI medical technology that improves fertility outcomes for IVF couples.

The product, Life Whisperer, uses a cloud-based analysis platform that improves the accuracy of healthy embryo selection in IVF treatments.

AI-driven technologies are also emerging in the agricultural industry, with drones carrying sensors and infrared mapping capabilities used to assess crop health and give a clearer picture of crop yield.

Dr Flackett, also a software engineer, has more than 20 years’ experience in AI, achieving a PhD in AI (machine learning and natural language processing) in 2005. Migrating to Australia from the UK around the same time, he co-founded smart web specialist company koolth before embarking on his second business venture, AiLab, with co-founder Emma Berry.

Dr Flackett regularly runs AI workshops and presents at events in the UK, Europe, the US and Australia to help demystify the world of AI and educate people on how it can empower businesses and transform how we live. The role of AiLab is to assist individuals, academia, industry, the community and government across the globe on how to navigate the complex field of AI and stay up to date with relevant progressions via education programs.

Dr Flackett says the field of AI – a term coined in the 1950s – is thriving “because humans have always wanted to automate tasks and build machines that can help”.

“AI as a field is really about that lofty goal of ‘can we build machines that are as intelligent as us?’ That’s called artificial general intelligence,” he says.

While Dr Flackett believes that the take-up of AI will be a huge disrupter to industry and workplaces, the key is to “not take the human out of it”.

AI is used in the ag-tech industry through drones that can assess crop health and give a clearer picture of crop yield.

“Personally, my approach is to embrace the advances and work with the technology. But you can’t take the human out of the process. You can’t get that personal customer experience with AI, so we need to be looking at AI to help inform our decisions, free up our time to interact with people and collaborate with others.

“The thing about automation and AI is that it drives a collaborative approach to jobs. For instance, the development of smart drones … in order to build such a system, many companies need to collaborate. If we’re producing AI-based image recognition technology we probably wouldn’t want to build the actual drone so we’d collaborate with a company that builds drones and then we’d supply the AI software skillset.

“I think that’s what we’ll start to see around future jobs, those skills sets of people being able to collaborate and communicate.”

Dr Flackett, who recently founded and organised Adelaide’s Artificial Intelligence meetup series, sponsored by AiLab and the Australian Institute for Machine Learning, says more work is to be done to encourage more investment into AI in Australia, and to develop policy and regulation.

He says SA is already ahead in nurturing talent for transforming industries as we have a highly skilled workforce that is ready to transfer its skills into emerging industries such as space and ag-tech.

Dr Flackett also explains that future employment pathways for today’s young people are likely to be varied and take more than one route.

“I refer to future jobs rather than future careers,” he says. “The career path that we’re used to is disappearing … according to the FYA (Foundation for Young Australians) people leaving school are going to have 17 different jobs, that whole career for life is virtually gone now.

“What we need to do is leverage the skills we already have, and transfer these skills to a rapidly changing workplace.”

Industry in focus: Careers of the Future

Throughout the months of May and June, future careers in South Australia will be explored as part of I Choose SA.

Embracing innovation, creativity and an understanding of building quality partnerships with technology is key to ensuring career opportunities in the future. SA is taking necessary steps to equip future generations with the skills for future careers and current workforces to transition to the future industries.

Read more Careers of the Future stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

SA’s chief entrepreneur helps new talent take flight

An early career as an elite air force fighter pilot led to the state’s Chief Entrepreneur building a global defence company with 700 employees, now he is helping the state’s next generation find their wings.

“If young people want to see themselves having a high-flying career they can go and work for a really large company,” Jim Whalley says. “Or they can create their own careers and their own companies from here that hopefully will go global.”

The chair and co-founder of defence company Nova Systems believes the state is the ideal training ground for young South Australians to choose the career path that involves building their own businesses. This, he says, is a state founded on a spirit of entrepreneurship along with social and religious freedom.

“Look at the Smith brothers for example, they flew from London to Australia (in 1919) but had to find their own finance, source their own aircraft, it was entrepreneurship to get the aircraft here but also to get support for the project,” Jim says.

“I think if you look at the number of Nobel Laureates per capita in SA, if we were a country we’d sit somewhere between Sweden and Switzerland, we’re somewhere in the top 10%. This is just the sort of spirit that we want, we’ve got the capability, the technical support.”

And Jim says there is strong financial support from the State Government.

SA’s Chief Entrepreneur Jim Whalley says the state has strong support for start-ups, entrepreneurs and innovation.

Budding entrepreneurs have access to funding for start-ups, space innovation, there is an export accelerator and venture capital fund along with precincts being created across Adelaide for start-ups that help accelerate them to commercialisation.

The new Lot Fourteen precinct on the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site in the city for example is leading the way as it is transformed into a neighbourhood entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Jim says the idea is to support innovative ideas and develop a state that is resilient.

“I’m a big believer in chaos creating an opportunity, the more change there is the more opportunity for companies that can think on their feet and enforce development and change.”

He believes jobs of the future “will be unpredictable” with a strong digital focus and the next generation is likely to change their employment paths more regularly.

“Coding for example will, I think, be something everyone will need to understand, it will be part of the curriculum like other languages,” he says. “Those who think and perform well in the future will need to be comfortable with high levels of uncertainty, to be able to think disruptively and think differently and think entrepreneurially.”

His own company Nova Systems started in SA as a defence company and now also has three offices in the United Kingdom, one in Singapore, Norway and Ireland. It has contracts working on Future Submarines, the Air Warfare Destroyers, and Joint Strike Fighter project but also in other industries including oil, gas and mining projects.

Jim Whalley is a former air force fighter pilot and test pilot.

Jim says he stepped down as CEO a few years ago after asking staff member Greg Hume “do you want to have a go at running the company?”

“It sent a very clear message to the middle management team that they could be CEO one day and whilst the company was a private company you didn’t have to be a member of the family to be a senior manager. We’ve got about 700 staff members now and I would like to reach the 1000 mark in the next two to three years.”

Jim was made the state’s first Chief Entrepreneur last year, and in his role is supporting a $6.3 million pilot program for the state’s public high schools that was created by the Entrepreneurship Commercialisation and Innovation Centre at the University of Adelaide.

It involves creating five specialist entrepreneurial high schools with State Government backing and “is about kids that have a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit getting a little bit of a leg up”.

“Basically it’s about giving them a bit of freedom to start businesses through courses, experimentation, to go and write a business plan and complete some leadership courses, to have a financial understanding about the things you need to know,” he says.

“It’s about coming up with an idea and knowing how to act on it.”

Jim thinks the environment is right for the state to continue building on its commitment to a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem that will support a dynamic economy.

“We live in one of the best countries and best states in the world. We want for very little and and we have people who are more than capable of operating on a world stage,” he adds.

Industry in focus: Careers of the Future

Throughout the months of May and June, future careers in South Australia will be explored as part of I Choose SA.

Embracing innovation, creativity and an understanding of building quality partnerships with technology is key to ensuring career opportunities in the future. SA is taking necessary steps to equip future generations with the skills for future careers and current workforces to transition to the future industries.

Read more Careers of the Future stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

SACE structure shaping our students for future jobs

Space, technology, creative industries, healthy ageing, all careers dominating the state’s future – but South Australia also wants its students learning to be first rate human beings.

It is a bold message from the chief executive of the hugely important SA Certificate of Education (SACE) Board, the group shaping more than 100 subjects available to Year 11 and Year 12 students.

Professor Martin Westwell says the board wants the state’s students to have access to important subjects but also to learn to be flexible, solve problems and importantly, apply their knowledge.

He quotes the esteemed director of education for the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Andre Schleicher, who was in Adelaide for a national conference for educational assessors in April.

“He warned that if we keep focusing on proficiency alone we will be developing second class robots and not first class humans,” the SACE Board CEO says. “We want to develop first class humans.”

Prof Westwell says there are high-profile industries developing in SA including world-class health research, the space industry, advanced manufacturing using high technology, and creative industries ranging from festivals to film.

More traditional industries like mining and resources, education and healthy ageing are also likely to remain strong employers, but Prof Westwell says students must be prepared for uncertainty.

“There was a Deloitte report that came out a few years ago showing the shelf life of skills is getting shorter and shorter,” he says.

That is why young people need skills to have careers rather than long-term jobs, Prof Westwell says.

“(For example) teams will become more important so we’ve got diversity, having proficiency in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) will be important. But you will also need skills to influence people, to support decision making to help people to imagine the imaginable so that it becomes (possible).”

Prof Westwell’s own career has followed unexpected paths; he was born into a long line of electricians in north-west England but turned out to be more academically suited.

SACE Board CEO Professor Martin Westwell says diversity in students education is important in preparing them for future careers. Photo by JKTP.

He studied at Wigan Mining College before winning a place at the esteemed Cambridge University to study chemistry including completing a PhD in biology chemistry before moving to Oxford University as a research fellow.

Work at a drug company spun out of the university followed, then Prof Westwell led a research project looking at how technology changes the way people think for the Research Institute for the Future of the Mind at Oxford University.

In 2007, he was lured to Flinders University after having visited SA with his wife who is a teacher, and the two deciding it was the right place for their careers and also bringing up their two sons now aged 17 and 21.

Prof Westwell was made director of the Flinders Centre for Science Education in the 21st Century, working on getting research to have maximum impact on the community. One project involved improving education results in schools.

“We worked with every public school in Port Augusta, pre, primary and high school, looking at young people’s cognitive learning to improve numeracy,” he says.

“In the high school when we started they were getting just over 60% of students reaching the national minimum for proficiency and that changed to more than 90%.”

Prof Westwell was a board member of SACE for five years before taking on the role as CEO in January 2018, tasked with overseeing $10.6 million in funding to transform the SA Certificate of Education.

In this time there has been renewal on the SACE Board, the first of Year 12 electronic exams and work on subject renewal for more than 60 subjects with one major focus.

“We’ll be asking students to put their knowledge into practice,” Prof Westwell says.

“We now quote Tony Wagner from Harvard University, ‘the world no longer cares what our students know, it cares about what they can do with what they know’.”

There are also plans to involve industry in developing new future jobs subjects including cyber security. Prof Westwell wants to build a system where employers and investors can know students who study the SACE know more than the basics, “I want them to be able to really infer something about young South Australians”.

“When we have a complex and uncertain job future we need expertise, we need flexibility, diversity,” he says.

“I think professionally, SA education is world leading in many ways and the way in which we go about it in this state is unusual, it is done by partnership, there’s a real feeling that we are all in this together for the success of our students.

“I think personally, one of the key drivers for us to coming to SA is we wanted our kids to have their childhood here, it’s a fantastic place to grow up, there’s a great education system here.”

Industry in focus: Careers of the Future

Throughout the months of May and June, future careers in South Australia will be explored as part of I Choose SA.

Embracing innovation, creativity and an understanding of building quality partnerships with technology is key to ensuring career opportunities in the future. SA is taking necessary steps to equip future generations with the skills for future careers and current workforces to transition to the future industries.

Read more Careers of the Future stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Doors open for opportunities in future careers

From the defence sector and cyber security to artificial intelligence and robotics – South Australia’s future industries are the great engines of change.

It’s a serious but exciting transition away from the once-thriving auto-manufacturing sector and towards these prosperous future industries that will lead to an increase in demand for skilled workers.

SA businesses to have already found solutions and strengths in our growing future industries include Axiom Precision Manufacturing, which once specialised in automotive parts manufacturing but has now transitioned into design and manufacturing for the aerospace, defence, rail, mining and health industries.

Two former car making factories – the Mitsubishi plant (now Tonsley) in Adelaide’s south and the Holden site in Adelaide’s north – have been reawakened into innovation districts and business parks home to thriving start-ups and global giants taking their products to the world.

But as our state continues its trajectory towards a new and brighter future, we must equip our children and students with the necessary skills and tools to navigate future workplaces.

Axiom Precision Manufacturing’s operations supervisor Shannon Wride started as an apprentice in 2006 with the company that focused on work for the automotive industry. Now Axiom works for defence, aerospace, mining, rail and medical companies.

The future success of our state rests in the hands of young people and we – both now and in the future – must embrace change, innovation and entrepreneurship to allow the next generation’s workforce to thrive.

Throughout the months of May and June, Brand South Australia is exploring Careers of the Future as part of the successful I Choose SA campaign.

We’ll be exploring what SA industries could look like in 20 years’ time, what steps businesses, industry and government are taking to prepare us for the future, and what skill requirements our children need for future workplaces.

Here at Brand SA News we’ll bring you a series of news articles on Careers of the Future and share the stories of people who are leading in fields of artificial intelligence, defence, health and ageing, entrepreneurialism, STEM education, advanced manufacturing and the space industry.

First up, we’ll bring you an interview with the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) Board CEO Professor Martin Westwell, who will share his thoughts on the importance of growing and fostering future jobs through the curriculum and early STEM education.

We’ll also engage with Dr John Flackett, an expert in artificial intelligence (AI) who runs AiLab, a business assisting other businesses as well as academia, industry, community and government to navigate the complex field of AI and where it will take us in the future.

Throughout our exploration of Careers of the Future, it will become apparent how SA is preparing for the changing tides in industry and setting itself up to take on such projects as the $90 billion Naval Shipbuilding Program and the Australian Space Agency’s establishment at Lot Fourteen.

An artist’s impression of innovation hub Lot Fourteen, once fully redeveloped. Photo: Renewal SA.

Our entrepreneurial ecosystem is set to strengthen, with SA the first in the nation to trial a new entrepreneur’s visa that aims to attract foreign entrepreneurs and investors to the state.

Lot Fourteen innovation district, the site of the former Royal Adelaide Hospital, will be a hotspot for future jobs and home to growing industries such as AI, cyber security, smart sensor networks, robotics, big data, defence, and the creative industries. The Australian Space Agency will also be established there, including the new co-operative research centre for smart satellite technologies.

Our future businesses are likely to be smaller and more nimble, with technologies such as blockchain, augmented reality, virtual reality and machine learning changing how they operate by making them more efficient.

A report released in 2017 by the Foundation for Young Australians revealed that a teenager today is more likely to have 17 different jobs and more than five careers in their lifetime. So how do we prepare them for this shift and for future work?

Keen to learn more? Come along to Brand South Australia’s Careers of the Future Industry Briefing on Monday May 13, 4–5.30pm, at Lot Fourteen. Guests will hear from Minister for Innovation and Skills David Pisoni, The NeuroTech Institute founder Dr Fiona Kerr, cyber security specialist for Naval Group Nathan Morelli and Renewal SA (Lot Fourteen) director of place and marketing, Rachel Walsh. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

Industry in focus: Careers of the Future

Throughout the months of May and June, future careers in South Australia will be explored as part of I Choose SA.

Embracing innovation, creativity and an understanding of building quality partnerships with technology is key to ensuring career opportunities in the future. SA is taking necessary steps to equip future generations with the skills for future careers and current workforces to transition to the future industries.

Read more Careers of the Future stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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