Q&A: Talking data with .id CEO, Lailani Burra

by PEXA - Property Exchange Australia

Five questions with Lailani Burra, CEO, .id

By Julie Khoo

In August 2022, PEXA announced its acquisition of .id, a strategic investment undertaken as part of the PEXA Insights growth strategy. We invited .id CEO, Lailani Burra to tell us a little bit about herself, .id and the synergies she sees between PEXA and .id.

Hi Lailani! Thank you for joining us today. As a start, please tell our readers a little bit about yourself.

I was born in London, grew up in country NZ, worked in Central Australia and now live in suburban Melbourne. This gives me good personal insight to different types of places and what they are like to live in. That’s pretty useful for my work. Strangely, I’ve never lived by the coast, but I love to swim and surf. And I must say, one of my best moments is getting up on a surfboard for the very first time!

What is the biggest thing that keeps you awake at night?

I like to sleep! If I’m waking up at night, it’s because I’m over-thinking something rather than taking action. Things like: When will our society be able to confront the truth about the lived experience and loss of Indigenous people? Why are we so cruel to people seeking asylum?

Tell us more about .id.

.id stands for “informed decisions”. We’re a company of expert geographers, economists, demographers and technologists who want to contribute to building our communities. We understand how our cities and regions grow and change. We capture and share this knowledge through intuitive webapplications so our clients can make informed decisions about investing in place to provide appropriate services to their communities. We believe that making information transparent and accessible helps build a fairer, more sustainable society. Our information tools are designed to solve the problem of “too much data, not enough knowledge”. We convert demographic, economic and geographic data into stories of place. This means our clients can build an evidencebased story when they’re developing a business case, engaging the community or advocating on their behalf.

Who are .id’s customers, and what are they looking for when they are using data solutions?

Over 300 local governments, covering 80% of Australia’s population, subscribe to our digital information platform. In addition, the platform is publicly available, so the end-users extend beyond council officers to include business and industry groups, community organisations, local residents, home buyers, students… basically, anyone interested in finding out about a region, suburb or neighbourhood. We also work with organisations making decisions about where to locate their facilities and services – education departments, utilities, retailers, property developers, franchisees, emergency services, aged care, childcare… even cemeteries! We call it nose-to-tail demography. And what our customers are most looking for: Two things – people need information for a relevant geography (catchment, suburb, town, planning district), and then they need that information to tell a story. Data alone though is not enough. It’s the way you put the data together to answer questions in a compelling way that informs decisions.

What do you think the future holds for the PEXA and .id collaboration?

PEXA and .id have a shared vision to make information about people and places accessible and transparent for everyone so we can build better communities. Together, we share a keen interest in mapping how land is used. To forecast future populations, we need to understand where development activity is taking place – now and in the future. With our partner organisations, Frontier SI and Landchecker, we can use new technology to capture and map development and build a national population forecast at a microgeography. This is very exciting as we expand the scope for our clients to quantify demand for housing and services for any catchment in Australia.