Australia’s Nobel Laureates Vol III State of Our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond Maintaining the momentum post-pandemic Special Report: Transforming Government Brought to you by Information Professionals Group and One Mandate Group
Written by Australia’s Nobel Laureates Volume III, they introduce the benefits of finding common ground between parties so that greater value can be untapped and more digital investment justified.
Digital readiness can be measured, and is measured at country, state and community levels, and provides a perspective on areas of relative strength and weakness of interest to every local government area. This article by Cisco Vice president, and a former Board colleague of mine on the AIIA Board, Ken Boal, describes the annual Cisco Digital Readiness index, and its key insights. It is one of several digital scorecards that I follow.
Artificial Intelligence is the much talked about next major area of digital investment and digital innovation in government and across industry. This article by Data61's Jon Whittle, provides some excellent use cases for AI, and while it doesn’t cover ethics, which is a whole subject in itself, it does provide some glimpses of the promise that AI brings.
Page 3 - Digital Services – A new level asked from regional providers
Page 9 - A Resilient Digital Australia
INTRODUCTIONCONTENTS
Page 11 - Cooperation key to Australia’s digital transformation
Page 12 - AI Reshaping Industry
How did digital adoption manage to accelerate so significantly through the pandemic? I look back at the dynamics of what happened to create the conditions for this to be achieved, and whether there is some common traits that allow for these to be repeated, by all organisations, with these phenomenon particularly noticeable in smaller and regional organisations.
Mark is at the forefront of digital technology transformation, known for his ability to engage people at every level, and honing in on client priorities to find the right formula for organisations to grow their way. He is a passionate advocate for the benefits that effective digital technology brings to industry, community, and the country, and has seen first-hand the challenges around digital technology that organisations face today. Mark’s passion is contributed through IPG and its clients and his active role across industry and government with the AIIA, the peak industry association for the digital economy, where he serves as National Deputy Chair.
Government has a critical role in setting the scene for success across our country, and for delivering those servic es that won't be delivered or delivered effectively by private industry. The opportunity for lifting the productivity and effectiveness of service delivery through digital technology is immense. This selection of articles supports Government Executives in leading that change. I have selected these articles from the Nobel Laureates e-book, plus written one specifically for government and exclusive to this magazine. I hope you get tangible value, in sights and inspiration from them. Mark Nicholls, CEO, Information Professionals Group.
Page 5 - Digital Services Post Pandemic: The Government Perspective
How well positioned is Government after the last few years of rapid change? Are there lessons, has there been a strong legacy created, or are there some hangovers that will require addressing due to the speed with which some change happened? This articles unpacks that question for Government.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdnicholls
2 Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL IIIWebsite EmailInformation Professionals Group2
3Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III State of our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond
In my experience in the ICT industry, I have wit nessed many significant changes surrounding mainstream adoption of technologies and have become familiar with the various factors that play a role in the speed of technology adoption, hav ing been engaged in technology adoption for over 3 decades.Around 9 years ago, I published a series of arti cles and delivered several presentations on the topic “The Pressure for Change”. In these talks, I set out to describe the tension created among three par ties, namely digital innovators trying to gain trac tion for new products and services, the communi ty’s ability to change and adopt these innovations and become customers, and government’s abil ity to either de-regulate or regulate to support the change that innovation brings. My proposition was that government is generally the slower of these three, and so those innovations that rely on regulatory change will gain traction late. Next slowest was the community. People need a compelling argument to change their habits, and many innovations simply don’t stack up. Those that did stack up initially, were those where the product or service could be digitalised readily, creating convenience and improved utility for customers. Thus, banking, entertainment (TV/ movies/music), information and knowledge (news papers, magazines, books and directories) were all “first movers”, as governments had a minimal role to play here and therefore weren’t slowing the pro cess by “getting in the way” (or failing to “get out of theOtherway”).innovations were either digitalising aspects of existing physical services, or creating new phys ical services with the help of various digital solu tions. This included ride-sharing services like Uber; food and grocery delivery services; and a number of other improvements when it came to researching and buying products and services, even if the final sale and delivery was done in a non-digital way. In fact, house, car, and many other types of purchases are now performed partly online and partly offline, with some providers having moved (or moving into) fully digital sales models. Some of these generated more interest from Government than others, especially where they conflicted with existing regulation. Ride-sharing is the most notable example here. To their credit, Uber (and others) adopted a “crash or crash through” approach to that problem. It is unlikely they ever would have gained sufficient patience from their New community expectations have all organisations trying to keep up with digital transformation.
DIGITAL SERVICES - A NEW LEVEL ASKED FROM REGIONAL PROVIDERS By NichollsMark
Sharing technology platforms, digital skills, and inter nal technology capabilities all offer accelerators for regional providers. Cloud technologies offer capabilities that support this. Commonwealth and state governments have been quietly adopting various forms of shared tech nology provision for some years now. This lowers the cost of digital service delivery, allowing scarce funds to be redirected into improving services. That investment in improvements also goes further with shared use of the same capability. While traditional “shared services” delivered some unfulfilled promises over a decade ago, the new shared models supported by new technologies are now gener ating many benefits for the clusters, consortiums, and alliances that adopt them.
As a result, the interests of all parties aligned, and we gained massive acceleration in digital adoption across so many sectors. Many of the technologies adopted have been around for many years, even decades, so it was not a question of whether these were new, but whether they were being newly adopted. These technologies created the ena blers, the pre-existing capability that could be scaled. This included cloud technologies - allowing services and systems to be accessible anywhere and scaled immediately – as well as video conferencing, which was already gaining wider adoption with Zoom making the services provided by Cisco and others more accessible. Microsoft was already well advanced on its Teams solu tions, although they did accelerate their development through the pandemic, as did many technology provid ers. Even QR codes, first used by millions through the pandemic, have been around for over 25 years - it was defined as an ISO (International Standards Organisation) standard 22 years ago. As we move slowly (hopefully) out of the COVID-19 pandemic and into an endemic phase, what have we learned in digital innovation adoption and where are the opportunities today/tomorrow?
Mark Nicholls is a partner and CEO of Information Professionals Group (IPG), as well as National Deputy Chair of the Australian Information Industry Association.
What is the solution to all this unfulfilled digital trans formation ambition?
4 Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL IIIWebsite EmailInformation Professionals Group4 investors and achieved success if they waited for every government to go about due consideration and change. They created a problem and forced governments to address it. It worked, but was not without damage. A number of legacy license holders were big losers and various governments, even today, are still taking rear guardHowaction.hasthe pandemic affected this dynamic? Firstly, community priorities have changed. The general pub lic needed better ways of going about their lives due to enforced lockdowns or self-imposed restrictions on movement. Industry (and Government) service provid ers needed new ways of delivering services to custom ers, citizens, staff and students. And Government, in their regulatory role, wanted to facilitate many of these as it helped to minimise the impact of restrictions on phys ical movement by supporting as much economic and community activity as possible.
If we align the interests of regional service providers, how can they better collaborate, and potentially create economies of scale to digitise more quickly? And with their customers geographically distributed more than most, they have an even more compelling argument to provide digitised services.
One answer lies in the lesson of the pandemic. As stated above, “the interests of all parties aligned and we gained massive acceleration in digital adoption across so many sectors.”
Our building body of case studies are increasingly reflective of the quiet promise that is delivering results across Australia.
In many cases, community expectations for digital ser vices are moving faster than some organisations can pro vide. Those organisations most challenged are smaller organisations, those that operate in regulated environ ments with restrictions on revenue growth, and this also tends to be regulated service providers in the non-met ropolitan regions of Australia. This may include local gov ernment, utilities, healthcare, community, and aged care providers. Furthermore, skills are a big challenge generally, and in regional areas this is an even bigger issue.
By NichollsMark
1Author of Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity.
PERTH, WA - 21st FEBRUARY 2021: QR code of SafeWA. A COVIDSafe app sign that collects information from customers, store, government and public buildings.
Building
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DIGITAL SERVICES POST PANDEMIC: THE GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE
Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III State of our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond further on the article series inspired from that published in Australia’s Nobel Laureates Volume III, where we highlighted the amazing speed of technology adoption through the pandemic and then considered the sectors that we work with at IPG. The broad view was very pos itive on how technology, community and govern ment interests aligned to accelerate technology adoption and create many benefits. As we consider those sectors, we work with at IPG, in Government, Local Government, Utilities, Health and Community Services and Growing Companies, this article unpacks the Government sector. The phenomenon put forward previously and well unpacked by Scott Galloway , Professor of Marketing at New York University Stern School of Business, is also very true of Government. The pan demic accelerated pre-existing trends, underway prior to the pandemic. With pre-existing trajecto ries accelerated, those that had digitisation jour neys underway were better placed to accelerate much more rapidly than others. The pandemic accelerated digital technology adoption. But it was not all equal, and the experience across government is a case in point.
The multi-purpose Service NSW app, for example, also supports the NSW digital license (car driving). With the increased need for use of the app, due to check in requirements, the adoption of the digital license was also accelerated, massively. NSW Government reported a take-up of 550,000 dig ital licenses in November 2019, just months before the pandemic. There are now 4.1 million issued, a growth of 3.6 million or over 600%. Additionally, the app also pro vides support for other licenses (e.g., Seniors, Fishing, Working with Children), and supports grants programs, and is proving to be a useful platform for a range of Mobile hot spot sign in remote location in Western Australia. Mobile hotspots are devices that connect to a cellular network, like 4G or 5G.
The digitisation journey is about more than the tech nology. The technology is an important ingredient, but just as important, or even more so is the culture and capability to utilise technology to support shifts in busi ness strategy, policy, and legislation or to deliver existing policy more effectively.
The early adopter was NSW, launched in August 2020, five months after the pandemic took hold here in Australia. The laggard sadly was QLD (being a Queenslander), launched in Feb 2021, a further six monthsNSW'slater.check-in app was part of a broader package of services available to NSW citizens via the Service NSW app. They weren't the only state that took this approach.
Moving back to digital aspiration, if we consider the use of QR codes and check-in apps, a common technol ogy adopted by all state governments through the end of 2020 and early 2021. This provides an example of dig ital capability, and a potential sign of digital aspiration.
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The nature of digital technology implementations presents risk. They can be new and novel investments, requiring new capabilities for successful delivery. Some failures will occur, such is the nature of this work. This is a topic outside the scope of this article, but it does fit into the culture and capability elements of technology adoption. And one thing we know is that you don’t go from low capability to high capability over-night. And you don’t build this capability by avoiding it.
The biggest difference does seem to be the differences in the digital aspirations of governments. This aspiration then manifests in the extent to which they invest finan cial resources and in capability development. Some governments have received past criticism for digital technology investment "failures". Some have forged on regardless. While others seem to consider the risk of digital technology project failure as a politi cal risk best avoided.
The opportunity for lifting the productivity and effec tiveness of service delivery through digital technology in Government is immense. And we saw significant invest ments by some governments through the pandemic. We also saw some not investing.
7Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III State of our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond government service delivery. There is even a performance dashboard on the take-up rates. See italatedthatdemic,continuedvidesonratevicesmentrequired.Itthangov.au/performance-dashboard/digital-licences-statistics.www.service.nsw.QLD'scheck-inappwasdeliveredsixmonthslaterNSW.Itwasaone-offsinglepurposeapplication.isofnousenowthatthecheck-inappisnolongerAndhasdonenothingtosupportgovernservicedeliverymorebroadly.Asmostobserversknow,QLDhasnocitizenserapp,nodigitallicense,andavarietyofsepawebsitestobefoundandnavigateddependingtheservicebeingsought.Whilethecheck-inappisaone-offexample,itproapertinentexampleforhowsomeGovernmentstoacceleratedigitisationthroughthepanwhileothersfailedtodoso.Thetrajectoriespre-existedpriortothepandemicwereaccelerornot,throughthepandemic.Wehaveconsideredafewotherindicatorsofdigaspirationinthetablebelow:•TheTelstraDigitalInclusionranking.PreparedannuallybyTelstra,andwhilelimitedbyitsmethodologyanddata,isausefulguide.•TheCISCODigitalReadinessranking.Prepared annually by CISCO and now extended into an international review, is also a useful guide. • 2021-2022 budget funding, based on new invest ment of digital technology (excluding business as usual costs) announced in budget papers. The below table shows two states (ACT and NSW) being clear in having high digital aspiration, and the rest battling or languishing behind that. VIC is lead ing this latter group right now. As can be seen, this is not about party politics. ACT is a long-term labor government and NSW is a longterm liberal-national coalition government. It is very much about a government’s aspirations to use digital as an enabler for good government service delivery. Those that work within these governments know all this. They are the victims or beneficiaries of the aspiration, the strategy, and the funding of the Government they are in, or lack thereof. And while it can vary markedly between departments, what seems clear is that each Government as a whole sets the tone for that Government. After all, a Cabinet buys into the risk and opportunity of digital technology investment in whatever way they choose. Some see mainly risk. Some also see opportunity.
Whatever Government you are in, and however wellfunded your department, there is always more to do. The world does not stop moving, technology providers do not stop retiring old tech, customer expectations are not going backwards, and the best staff will not hang around to maintain 20-year-old infrastructure. So, what choices do you have to keep progressing. No matter where you are on the journey, these will all apply:
• Agile and iterative development. If done well, this can reduce delivery risk, get business and technology personnel working together, and ensures that investments deliver improve ments on the ground more quickly. But it also takes some time to develop this capability. And the capability needs to exist both within the IT group and within the business.
Being further advanced on Enterprise Platforms, cloud adoption and funding helps some to be further advanced in this area too. But there is plenty that can be done here regardless. One is making this challenge a shared chal lenge with business areas in developing this capability, and in doing so, gaining broader sup port for the financial challenges. Another is find ing those areas where small investments can be delivered quickly with obvious impacts. This gen erates confidence and momentum. Some gov ernment departments achieve this, but some local governments seem particularly good at this.
• Workflow, Automation, and AI . Workflow and automation are examples of where small investments can generate obvious positive impacts. And every organisation has many opportunities here to generate productivity, reduce risk, improve service quality, and gen erate staff and customer benefits.
Each of the above three areas (Enterprise platforms, funding, and agile delivery) accelerate and support this area but that doesn’t stop you from making progress here. And if you are looking for agile and iterative devel opment opportunities then implementation of workflow and automation will be excellent candidates. These examples prove once again, that regardless of sector, the organisations that have found most suc cess are those with the culture, capability and tech nology that are able to support the delivery of, and shifts in, strategy and policy. The culture, capability and technology that existed pre-pandemic supported what was required through the pandemic. We would welcome your views and input on all aspects of this article, so please get in touch to share your views. For more on getting the building blocks of innovation delivery in place, see this article, by IPG CEO, Mark Nicholls
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• Funding and costs . Transitioning your digi tal technology spend away from Business-asUsual (BAU) and moving higher percentage of spend into business improvement is a journey every organisation is on. This is coupled with a transition from capital spend (for asset-inten sive purchasing such as servers and software licenses) to expense spend (for cloud services).
• Enterprise platforms and cloud. These estab lish the foundation on which you can build future services. Moving to common enterprise platforms and into the cloud to aid agility and scalability is likely to be the best path. The high aspiration governments have whole-of-government approaches. For example, in NSW, GovDC and a number of defined whole-of-gov ernment platforms provide accelerators. Outside of these Governments, departments and agencies can adopt similar approaches on their own, or in collaboration with other departments.
Higher aspiration higher maturity govern ments are further advanced on this journey and are making the treasury and finance adjust ments to recognise this shift from capital to expense spend. Plus, continuity of business improvement spend is more guaranteed in higher aspiration governments. Lower aspiration, lower maturity govern ments will welcome a reduction in BAU spend and then claw the savings back into Treasury. This does undermine capability development, continuity of progress, and damages the ability to make the longer-term strategic shifts that are required. Working on these challenges within your department become crucial.
This infrastructure will deliver to its full poten tial only if we invest in building the skills of our people to use, create and defend digital services.
Australia remains among the forefront of digitally transformed nations, ranking 12th across the globe in terms of digital readiness (according to Cisco’s 2019 Global Digital Readiness Index). It follows Iceland and Luxembourg, and stands among Singapore, the US and European nations.
By Ken BoalD igital readiness is defined as how well-po sitioned a country, state or territory is to benefit from the digital economy across seven components: basic needs, human capi tal, business and government investment, ease of doing business, startup environment, tech nology adoption and technology Infrastructure. Understanding our digital readiness supports decision-making in key areas where further investment or acceleration of capabilities may be Ciscorequired.released its second Australian Digital Readiness Index in 2020, providing a snapshot of Australia’s evolving digital capability at the state and territory level, and acting as a guide for where investments are needed.
Little did we know that two years later the value of those investments would be repaid many times over by providing Australia with a robust and comprehensive digital capability that has played a critical role in our response to the COVID-19 crisis. While the pandemic has exacted a high economic and social toll, its consequences would have been much greater had Australia not already made significant investments in digital readiness.Forexample, the deployment of high-speed national network infrastructure has meant many organisations can keep their staff both safe and productive by enabling them to work from home. That same infrastructure provides a vital connection for thousands of students who partici pate in remote learning and has become the back bone for remote health consultations, keeping many frontline responders safe. Likewise, invest ment in digital skills has allowed businesses and government agencies to accelerate their rollout of digital services, including bricks-and-mortar restaurants and retailers who have switched to e-commerce to continue trading.
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A RESILIENT DIGITAL AUSTRALIA
The investments will play a vital role in help ing Australia navigate through the post-COVID-19 world, but further work is needed if we are to achieve the productivity uplifts necessary to bring Australia out of recession and ensure we remain competitive. Cisco’s global research has always shown a high correlation between digital readi ness and economic prosperity, and other nations are stepping up their investments accordingly.
Digital readiness is a defining characteristic of successful 21st century societies, and where we choose to invest is key.
Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL III State of our Innovation Nation: 2022 and Beyond
Australian industry has a desperate and grow ing need for people equipped for a dynamic, digitised world, including having general dig ital skills that help businesses to move up the value chain as industries further automate. Development of "blue tech" or digital trade skills will be vital to meeting those needs. Critically, we must also be sure not to lose sight of the need for the outcomes of these investments to be shared equitably across Australia. Equitable access to digital services and training represents the 21st century equiv alent of the age-old Australian concept of giv ing everyone a "fair go". The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of continued invest ment to ensure those communities that are least served digitally today do not experience addi tional hardship from future events. It is important that we don’t become com placent about Australia’s digital readiness. The index highlights the need for accelerat ing new investment with a focus on improving Australia’s global competitiveness and bridging the divide between states to build further soci etal resilience. Growing digital divides within and between states need to be addressed for Australia to unleash the totality of its digi tal potential. Government, industry and aca demia will have key roles to play in empow ering our country to become a global digital leader and build resilience for our economy.
10 Australia’s Nobel Laureates VOL IIIWebsite EmailInformation Professionals Group10 Ken Boal is vice president, Cisco, Australia & New Zealand.
In addition to the need for ongoing support of the higher education sector, Cisco has joined forces with TAFE Directors Australia and our part ner Optus to call on the Australian Government to assess the growth in technology-intensive jobs requiring sub-degree-level qualifications in order to help the TAFE sector more rapidly pre pare for, and respond to, anticipated demand. We have also called for funding of the develop ment and delivery of micro-credential digital programs to help in the reskilling and upskilling of workers displaced by recent developments.
The example of rapidly emerging countries such as Singapore, which ranked first in the global Index, should help Australia set its ambition for digitalDigitalreadiness.readiness is the key to economic pros perity, but it is also critical to building societal resilience. Only by continuing to invest in our digital capabilities can we maximise the benefits in the good times and ensure we are best placed to manage the future crises that will inevitably come our way.
Australian industry has a desperate and growing need for people equipped for a dynamic, digitised world
A pandemic has required Australian industry and governments to work in concert like never before, with better community outcomes. While the coronavirus may not be as “novel” as it once was, the remarkable advancements in applied digital innovation during the pandemic are. Several technologies and processes, for example, QR codes, online shopping, at home video conferencing and eLearning, have become part and parcel in the daily lives of so many Australians. Time travel back to 2019 and anyone invested in digi tal transformation, whether in the private or public sector, would have suggested that these examples were margin ally useful additions to the lives of Australians, and perhaps some years away from becoming mainstream.
We have seen the government’s ability to pool and direct resources, industry’s ability to deliver at scale and quite often at pace, and lastly, we see the community’s ability to adapt and adopt, if there is a sufficient reason for them to do so. When combined, these newly adopted technologies illustrate how governments, industry and the commu nity can work together to innovate, adapt, adopt and ultimately make everyone's lives better by solving com mon challenges. It has been good to see what can hap pen when these three forces collaborate to the extent we haveNewexperienced.SouthWales, Victoria and ACT governments vie for being the leading jurisdiction in the country when it comes to digitising everyday interactions between citizens and their government. This is according to the recent history of Telstra’s Digital Inclusion Index, Cisco’s Digital Readiness Index and Intermedium’s digital government report card.
As we manoeuvre out of this pandemic (albeit there may still be a way to go), the best legacy seems to be the contin ued collaboration for the greater public good. This working together in harmony is vital when considering the number of other significant challenges Australia is facing (not lim ited to climate change and growing external geo-political threats as two examples) that require the country’s best and brightest minds to work together.
COOPERATION KEY TO AUSTRALIA’S TRANSFORMATIONDIGITAL
For more than 20 years, Information Professionals Group has supported growing companies, councils, government, utilities and health and community organisations, to nav igate the complexities and sensitivities associated with implementing change in challenging environments. The company’s leadership has always informed its work by asking “How does the customer benefit?”
While we hope it is a long time before the next crisis of pandemic proportions, we know that this spirit of collab oration can undoubtedly go a long way to tackling other complex challenges. It is in this vein that we should col laborate: understand the strengths and constraints of each other and, in concert, devise and implement solutions accordingly – for the betterment of the country and for the life of each citizen.
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The Federal Government is also moving quickly and has set its plan to be one of the top three digital governments in the world by 2025. Meanwhile, industry is getting on with the job of continually improving and refining their digital capa bilities for their clients, their staff and other stakeholders.
In 2019, the Australian government released its Artificial Intelligence Technology Roadmap, which was developed in partnership with CSIRO’s Data61 to identify strategies to help develop a national AI capability to boost the productivity of Australian industry, create jobs and improve the quality of life for current and future generations. Looking at the use of this technology within key Australian industries, it’s clear that some have been more enthusi astic adopters than others. In 2019, the introduction of a new global accounting standard IFRS16 required report ing of all leases, affecting $US3 trillion of assets. Legal and accounting firms worldwide were challenged by this new requirement to change their practices to lease abstraction, a time-consuming, error-prone task that man ually extracts key information from a lease contract for reporting. Through a CSIRO KickStart project, natural language processing approaches, based on machine learning, were used to enable software to learn from large datasets of leases, find the patterns in the contextualised text data and code the data for use downstream. This resulted in the development of Accurait, a world-first automated solution for accurately extracting, storing and classifying information from com mercial leases and exporting it to other man agement systems, including account books.
Take healthcare - research has shown that artificial intelligence can reduce costs, improve wellbeing and make quality care accessible for all Australians. It has also become a key part of everyday food security and quality, energy resources, future indus tries, transport and infrastructure, playing a key role in transforming economies, unlocking new social and environmental value as well as accelerating scientific discovery.
A I uses data-driven algorithms to autonomously solve problems and perform tasks without human guid ance, enabling productivity gains for almost every industry. In fact, the adoption of AI is estimated to be worth $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, presenting signifi cant opportunities for Australia, enabling us to perform tasks faster, safer and cheaper. However, as the technology leverages data to create algorithms, ultimately, it can only be as good as the data.
AI INDUSTRYRESHAPING
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From systems embedded into smartphones to detect skin cancer, to autonomous cars with driver fatigue detection and pedestrian avoidance systems, artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the world we know.
While the algorithms that underpin the technology have been around for decades, exponentially growing volumes of data, as well as cheap and readily available comput ing infrastructure, now mean it can operate at scale and speed like never before, creating a host of applications across multiple sectors.
By Jon Whittle, Director, CSIRO’s Data61
This technology has since been trialed and demonstrated on more than two million doc uments, driving productivity through higher rates of error detection, faster turnaround times and lower labour costs. Adoption of artificial intelligence is not just limited to industry. We’re also seeing it have a significant impact on our envi ronment and the natural world, specifi cally Australia’s National Parks. In Kakadu National Park, concerns were raised when para grass, an invasive weed, began chok ing precious wetlands. The impact of this was vast. It began displacing native plants and reducing the habitat of magpie geese, a dwindling population considered to be a key indicator of ‘healthy country’ by tra ditional owners. Park rangers were strug gling to monitor and manage the weed and had limited resources. In a bid to protect the natural habitat, researchers at CSIRO designed an AI tool, which, paired with Indigenous Knowledge, improved man agement of the area, resulting in the mag pie geese population increasing from 50 to 1,800 birds — a 3,500 per cent increase. Such examples of artificial intelligence serve as a reminder of the good this tech nology can do — creating value that didn’t previously exist and profound benefits to the economy, society and environment. While this technology does indeed have the potential to drastically reshape indus tries, social and economic structures, the focus should be on creating real value. If we lay the right foundations, AI has the poten tial to boost productivity, grow the econ omy, generate jobs and create entirely new industries.
Kakadu Park Rangers Serena McCartney (left) and Annie Taylor (right) use Artificial Intelligence to manage environmental threats.
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T: 1300 738 054 E: mark.nicholls@informpros.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdnicholls
State of Our Innovation Nation 2022 and Beyond
Australia’s Nobel Laureates Vol III
Email: business@informpros.com Website: www.informpros.com
Tel: 1300 738 054 Mark Nicholls Partner and Chief Executive, Information Professionals Group National Board member and Deputy Chair, Australian Information Industry Association
