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www.afr.com | Monday 13 November 2017

Special Report

Reimagination 2017Edited by Jason Clout: jclout@fairfaxmedia.com.au

DigitaldisruptorsAward winnersfor 2017 S4-5

ArtificialintelligenceThe path aheadfor humanity S2

BusinesstransformationSkills neededto seizeopportunities S3

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AFRMonday 13 November 2017The Australian Financial Review | www.afr.com

S2 Special Report Reimagination 2017

Grenier tells ofpassion andthe dawn of AI

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Innovation Doing socialgood is a priority foractor and producer.

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Mark Eggleton

Grenier believestechnology is aboutimproving people’slives.

SOURCE: DELOITTE ACCESS ECONOMICS FOR THE AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER SOCIETY (ACS)

Number of ICT* workers by selectedindustry, 2016

Digital technologies provide a significant economic dividend

A growing sector

*Information and communication technology

ICT-related industries309,313

Professional services75,806

Publicadministration46,262

Financialservices44,425

Other industries165,040

increase in GDP per capita in Australia over 2004–14 due to digital technologies

6.6%

per person in 2016$)

$4,663(equivalent to

forecast total economiccontribution of the

digital economyin 2020

$139bn

Total640,846

For American actor and producerturned social entrepreneur AdrianGrenier, the time of singularity mostoften espoused by writer and futuristRay Kurzweil cannot come soonenough.

The international keynote speaker atthe recent Reimagination 2017 confer-ence, Grenier said he ‘‘can’t wait for sin-gularity’’, which Kurzweil suggests willsee artificial intelligence overtakehuman intelligence and profoundlydisrupt human capability by 2045.

For Grenier, it will be a time when‘‘humans as we know them are maybeless important’’.

‘‘Everyone will have tech embeddedin their bodies and be connected to thecloud – it’s a different ideal,’’ he told theconference.

An outspoken advocate for numer-ous environmental causes, Grenierspoke of his passion for doing socialgood and the importance of socialentrepreneurship with 2016 AustralianComputer Society female young pro-fessional of the year, Cynthia Lee.

In a wide-ranging discussion, hespoke about co-founding the LonelyWhale Foundation, an incubator for

great market-based ideas that can helpimprove our oceans.

The foundation started the StrawlessOcean initiative – a campaign nowinvolving over 50 leading ocean healthNGOs and creative media partnersdesigned to raise awareness of theenvironmental issues associated withsingle-use plastics. At present theworld discards over 50 million plasticstraws a day.

Grenier says there is a long way to gowith the initiative as there is with mostof his social entrepreneurship work,but he suggests it is the way of thefuture for society and business.

He believes technology is primarilyabout improving the lives of humanbeings, the key is to ‘‘look at every pro-ject and ask, is it creating value for peo-ple and how does it improve societyand communities?’’

‘‘You have to be able to measure thegood,’’ he says.

His comments reflect much of thecurrent thinking around how businesscan best engage Millennials, as out-lined in numerous studies includingDeloitte’s Millennial Survey 2017,which involved over 8000 young peo-ple in 30 countries.

The survey found Millennials believethe workplace is where they are mostable to make an impact.

‘‘Opportunities to be involved with‘good causes’ at the local level, many ofwhich are enabled by employers,provide Millennials with a greater feel-ing of influence,’’ the survey found.

Grenier is also working with Dell as asocial advocate and together theylaunched a global pilot program thisyear to ‘‘turn the tide on ocean pollu-tion’’, as reported by CNBC.

He says Dell also have programs toretrieve obsolete technology with theaim of ‘‘upcycling and reusing it’’.

As for young Australians looking tohead down the path of social entre-preneurship, Grenier suggests collab-oration is the key.

‘‘I really do believe that anybody whodoes something in a vacuum, in isola-tion, will ultimately fail. You need otherideas. We need to work well with peo-ple, and that’s the reason why we want

to create these technologies in the firstplace, to improve the lives of humanbeings.

‘‘Ideas come when people step out-side their silos – when they breakthings [down].

‘‘Eventually society will correct itselfand ultimately reject your technology ifyou haven’t taken into considerationtheir ultimate needs,’’ he says.

Of his own work in social advocacyas well as his creative career, Greniersays he’s ‘‘lucky enough to be in anindustry where there’s a lot of peoplewith a lot of money’’.

He says Silicon Valley has becomeinterested in financing his work,including his creative projects.

He admits his starring role in theHBO series Entourage has helped raisethe profile of his causes and contrib-utes to his social media following ofover 1.3 million across Facebook, Twit-ter and Instagram.

But his focus is not on building hissocial media profile. ‘‘It’s more about

doing good work and creating value foran audience.’’ Interestingly, for a celeb-rity who is incessantly snapped bypaparazzi, he does not seem overly per-turbed about privacy issues in the ageof big data.

He asked whether anyone reallycares about privacy any more.

‘‘I don’t know where this idea of pri-vacy as being this coveted ideal camefrom or why that is but, I believe withperfect information, we can all have thedata and we can make better choices.

‘‘It’s when people start lying andbeing cagey and not sharing, then youget imperfect information.’’

Yet while he is an advocate of bigdata and looks forward to the age ofsingularity, Grenier believes businessshould be focused on the human ele-ment behind all the technology.

‘‘What people are craving at presentare tangible real-world experiences.There’s real value in rubbing elbowswith other humans, which you can’t getonline.’’

Innovation means some failures along the way

Liesl Yearsley, of Akin, says a company has to be comfortable with failure.

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Strategy A change inmindset could resultin so much more.

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Ian Grayson

Australian companies must nurture aculture of constant innovation but alsorealise experiencing failure along theway is perfectly acceptable.

Panel participants at the recent ACSReimagination 2017 summit agreedthat, while the nation has chalked upsome impressive wins when it comesto establishing and growing busi-nesses, a change in mindset could res-ult in so much more.

‘‘For a company to truly succeed, it’sculture has to be 100 per cent aboutinnovation,’’ says Liesl Yearsley, chiefexecutive officer of artificial intelli-gence company Akin. ‘‘You have to becomfortable with failure and, when ithappens, embrace it and move on tothe next thing.’’

Yearsley’s sentiments were echoedby other panelists who pointed to theenvironment that exists within techno-logy hotbeds such as California’s Sil-icon Valley. There, business failure issomething that is actively celebrated asit is deemed to be evidence a firm isstriving to push boundaries in searchof growth.

Robert Hillard, managing partner,consulting at Deloitte Australia, saysoften, if a new project does not succeed,

people move the goalposts to redefinesuccess because failure is not accept-able. This way of operating needs tochange.

‘‘At Deloitte, 30 per cent of what wedo must not have existed in the markettwo years ago,’’ he says. ‘‘The other rulewe use is that 30 per cent of growthmust happen inorganically, with theremaining 70 per cent organic growth.If it differs from that ratio, it means acompany is not bringing in enoughnew ideas and perspectives.’’

Hillard says companies need to havean expectation of certain rates of fail-ure when undertaking new initiatives,often of around 20 per cent. Parts of thebusiness that do not experience thatrate should be penalised, as it showsthey are being too conservative.

Panel members said some of themost significant commercial successescan come from so-called ‘‘moonshot’’companies that have particularly highrates of failure. These companies arebuilt around an ambitious, ground-breaking idea and are not focused ongenerating short-term profitability.

The federal shadow minister for thedigital economy, Ed Husic, told deleg-ates a lot of people talk about theconcept in Australia but ‘‘the biggestmoonshot would actually be to havemoonshots’’.

‘‘We often hold ourselves back andwait for someone else to do it,’’ he says.‘‘The number of times I hear someonesay we should look at this country orthat country and what they are doing – Iwonder whether (those countries)

looked at us? Actually, they just wentahead and did it and we should do thesame thing, we should be prouder.’’

Husic says shifting the nationalmindset in this way will go beyondsimply generating dollars throughbusiness and also help to make com-munities stronger and to solve socialchallenges. ‘‘We can breathe life intothe promise of technology by reducingthe distances between people andensuring things are done better andmore efficiently.

‘‘What I am worried about, however,is the level of digital engagement acrossbusiness, both large and small,’’ hesays. ‘‘When you look at (how Austra-

lian companies) are paying attention totechnology and investing in technologyto improve operations, we are waybehind some of the leaders.’’

Summit participants also discussedhow Australia’s education sector willneed to evolve to support entrepren-eurs and technologists of the future.

Shadow minister of universities anddeputy chair of the Standing Commit-tee on Employment, Education andTraining, Terri Butler, says it is clearskills needed for future jobs are verydifferent from those needed for jobstoday. The challenge is made moreacute because, with technology chan-ging so rapidly, it can be difficult to pre-

dict exactly what skills will be requiredand what should be taught to studentstoday. ‘‘This is why you are seeing dis-cussion around so-called 21st centuryskills such as resilience, adaptabilityand being able to continue to learn, andembedding these in the curriculum nomatter what you are studying.

‘‘Australia’s advantage is that wehave quality education and a highlyregulated education system that sup-ports quality (and) we need to makesure this is maintained. Education isthe best force that we have to improveour nation’s productivity.’’

Summit participants also heardabout the benefits of computer gamingand how it can potentially be used toimprove productivity and employeeengagement.

In a keynote address, US-based gamedesigner Jane McGonigal shared herresearch into how playing computergames can improve a person’s mindsetand ward off feelings of defeat anddepression. Pokemon Go, whichbecame the most downloaded app inmid-2016, has had a significant andpositive impact on many players, whoreported it helping with depressionand feelings of isolation.

Commenting on his own highlightsfrom Reimagination 2017, ACS chiefexecutive officer Andrew Johnson saidthe panel on expediting Australia’sdigital transformation and involvingfederal parliamentarians SenatorBridget McKenzie, Ed Husic, Terri But-ler and Trent Zimmermann ‘‘was cer-tainly lively’’.

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Senator Bridget McKenzieChair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and

Trade Legislation CommitteeSenator for Victoria, The Nationals

The Hon Ed Husic MPShadow Minister for Employment Services,

Workforce Participation and Future of Work, Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy

Member for Chifley, Australian Labor Party

Ms Terri Butler MPShadow Assistant Minister for Preventing Family Violence, Universities and Equality

Member for Griffith, Australian Labor Party

Mr Trent Zimmerman MPChair Health, Aged Care and Sport Committee

Member for North Sydney,Liberal Party of Australia

Jane McGonigalWorld-renowned game designer

Inventor of SuperBetter

Adrian GrenierTech Investor & Founder of SHFT.com

Actor, Filmmaker, Advocate

Panel: Expediting Australia’s Digital Transformation

Panel: Identifying the Moon Shots:A Company Board’s Perspective

Panel: Data as the New Growth Engine Panel: Emerging Tech andTransforming your Business Model

Thanks to all our thought leaders

reimagination.acs.org.au

AFR Monday 13 November 2017www.afr.com | The Australian Financial Review

S3Special ReportReimagination 2017

Boards falling behind on digital disruption● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Directors Technicalskills are essential inthis day and age.

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Mark Eggleton

Sarah Adam-Gedge says some Australian businesses leave it too late by onlyutilising ‘‘disruptive technology when they’re being disrupted’’.

Many of the nation’s larger companiesare struggling to make a proper assess-ment of their digital needs because theydo not have the necessary skillsdiversity on their boards, says AvanadeAustralia’s managing director SarahAdam-Gedge.

Adam-Gedge was speaking at therecent Reimagination 2017 conferencein Sydney and said Australian compan-ies needed to ensure they had moretech-savvy people on their boards orrisk falling even further behind in theirdigital disruption journey.

According to Adam-Gedge, part of theproblem is some Australian businesseshave been guilty of only utilising ‘‘dis-ruptive technology when they’re beingdisrupted’’ and often this is too late.

Fortunately, there is some goodnews as it would seem boards are wak-ing up and according to the AustralianInstitute of Company Directors’ (AICD)latest Director Sentiment Indexreleased this month, more than three-quarters of Australian company direct-ors are increasingly looking to improvediversity on their board through therepresentation of more diverse skills.

This comes on the back of AICDcombining with Data61 this year tolaunch an education program designedto lift the digital and cyber literacy ofdirectors and boards across Australia.

For Adam-Gedge, boards must alsoensure digital-savvy cascades throughtheir whole organisation and be awarebig business-changing decisions are nolonger about putting in place two orthree-year transformation programsbut revolve around ‘‘shorter, sharperplans’’.

Speaking as part of an EmergingTech and Transforming Your Busi-ness Model panel at Reimagination2017, she emphasised the importanceof leadership in the transformationprocess and how leaders need tounlearn and relearn their currentbehaviours.

She says leaders have to solve prob-lems with the right people in theirorganisations and that means beingskilful in identifying and understand-ing ‘‘the unicorns we want to flourish inour companies’’.

Fellow panellist Elisabeth Brintonsays digital transformation is always ahard slog for companies. ‘‘It’s a culturaltransformation.’’

Brinton, the executive general man-ager of AGL’s New Energy business,also believes people have to be willingto unlearn.

‘‘The challenge for business leadersis stepping back as a human being andasking what can I unlearn that will help

me be receptive and open to how I viewthe world. How can I help my companymake the moon shot?’’ she asks.

‘‘Companies have to be brave andrealise innovation only happens whenit’s accepted as part of the DNA of anorganisation.’’

She warns against innovation for itsown sake, ‘‘it needs to be practical’’, andit has to show a path forward. The keyto ensuring you’re on the right path is

data, and Brinton says data drivesinsights and ‘‘should point you in theright direction for the good of your cus-tomers and shareholders’’.

NSW chief data scientist Ian Opper-mann says the key for organisations isto ‘‘be bold and experiment in a discip-lined way’’.

He says it is vital to use data and putthe customer at the heart of everythingand ensure decisions are a marriage

between data and science. ‘‘Data is away of seeing the world and science is away of understanding the world and ifwe bring those two together we have apretty good set of tools to do somepowerful things,’’ Oppermann says. ‘‘Itallows you to see across boundariesand reimagine how you do things in anew way.’’

Panellist Andrew Flick of MicroFocus agreed data allows business toset up strategic frameworks for change.

Flick is Micro Focus’ senior globaldirector of product management, port-folio and lifecycle management.

The enterprise software giantrecently merged with Hewlett PackardEnterprise to become one of the largestsoftware providers in the world.

‘‘Business needs to understand datascience can disrupt everything. It candrive efficiency and in terms of theoverarching business case, data allowsyou to do things incrementally. It’s notabout trying to find the one world-changing idea – it allows you to iterateslowly.’’

‘‘The key is to be laser-focused on thecustomer,’’ he says.

AGL’s Brinton says we need realintelligence.

‘‘As we get all these amazing newplatforms we have to embrace our ownintelligence and unlearn what we needto discard and think forward,’’ saysBrinton.

‘‘It will transform our lives, compan-ies and our world.’’

AFRGA1 S004

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S4 S5Monday 13 November 2017The Australian Financial Review

www.afr.comSpecial Report Special ReportDIGITAL DISRUPTOR AWARDS DIGITAL DISRUPTOR AWARDS

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Technology The abilityto build passionateteams is recognised.

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Mark Eggleton and Joshua Gliddon

Emeritus Professor Mike Miller has strong opinions on what Australia needs to do to maintain its edge in innovation and IT.

Collaboration is the key to thriving in thedigital economy and it is a message rein-forced by many of the winners of therecent Australian Computer Society(ACS) Digital Disruptors Awards held inSydney.

It was reiterated by the winner of the2017 ICT Professional of the Year, DrJordan Nguyen, who credited much ofhis ground-breaking work to the ability tobuild passionate teams and to collaboratewith many.

Dr Nguyen, who is a biomedical engin-eer, says the reason his career has been sorewarding is he has always taken inspira-tion from great people and visionaries.Moreover, he is driven by his passion tohelp others through technology.

Chief executive officer of the ACS,Andrew Johnson, says Dr Nguyen, whosework has focused on inclusive techno-logy that transforms the lives of peoplewith disabilities, epitomises the inspiringnature of many of the award winners.

Mr Johnson said the Digital Disruptorswere incredibly inspiring.

‘‘To see so much talent pushing theenvelope and introducing game-changing ideas will undoubtedly haveencouraged our attendees to do thesame,’’ he said.

Other big winners on the night includethe Australian Taxation Office, whichpicked up the gong for a large employerthat has transformed the workplace and

upskilled its workforce ‘‘to use new ICTsolutions to improve performance, cul-ture, competencies and productivity.’’

Winners for transforming their digitalservice offering to customers includedSouth Australia’s Statewide Super andthe University of Queensland.

Also presented on the night were the

Pearcey Foundation Awards and tele-communications leader, and emeritusprofessor Mike Miller was the recipientof the annual Pearcey Medal.

Professor Miller has strong opinionson what Australia needs to do to main-tain its edge in innovation and IT in thecoming years. He believes the nation

must strengthen the links between theresearch happening in academia and thereal-world outcomes needed by Austra-lian industry.

‘‘We’ve got great research teams inAustralia, with lots of bright people,’’ hesaid.‘‘I have counted 17 teams working inthe area of artificial intelligence, but the

problem is that there’s a lack of know-ledge in government and industry aboutwhere these teams are and how to usethem.’’

He said the country needed a facilitywhere industry is better informed aboutwhere these research groups exist, andwhat they are working on.

‘‘Universities are well-disposed toworking with industry, but they are notwell informed about what industry isdoing in terms of ICT,’’ he noted.

Professor Miller’s long history with ITand telecoms won him the PearceyMedal, the highest honour in Australiafor work in technology. It is a recognitionof a long career, but also one that hasinspired hundreds of students, many ofwhom have gone on to make their marklocally and globally.

‘‘I think the thing I look back on mostfondly is working with all those young,bright minds,’’ he said. ‘‘People between20 and 30 are at their most fertile when itcomes to ideas, and I think that I havedone my bit in helping them shine.’’

Commenting after the awards, MrJohnson said the Reimagination Confer-ence right through to the Digital Disrup-tor Award winners promoted the ideathat ‘‘culture is the discriminatingingredient for business – it can be elusiveand hard to define but some of the keyinsights, including the proposition of cre-ating an environment that doesn’t penal-ise failure, rather sees it as a necessarylearning for future success.’’

Customer experience was ‘‘critical’’ aswas finding and retaining good people tohelp transform business. He suggeststhey are two of the key ingredients foundin all of the winners – a laser-like focus oncustomer service provided byempowered and knowledgeable teams.

Helping tocombatthe hackers

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SMEs● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Joshua Gliddon

Technology security is hard for small andmedium-sized business. Unlike largeorganisations, they generally do not have,and cannot afford, dedicated IT andsecurity teams.

David Rudduck, founder and man-aging director of Gold Coast-basedInsane Technologies, has targeted thisniche with his business, which has beenoperating for the past 18 years.

According to Rudduck, SMEs are notimmune from hacking and databreaches, which is all the more import-ant with the incoming Notifiable DataBreaches, which comes into play on Feb-ruary 22 next year.

‘‘Many small and medium businessesassume that the NDB scheme doesn’tapply to them because their revenue isunder the $3 million threshold,’’ he says.‘‘But if they are dealing with financialinformation, patient information orinformation relating to children, they aresubject to the scheme.’’

Rudduck was the recent winner of theAustralian Computer Society’s SkillsTransformation Award (small business)at its recent Digital Disruptor Awards.This followed a significant realignmentof the six-strong team, moving the focusaway from managed services towardsSME security.

‘‘Security is often an afterthought forSMEs,’’ he says. ‘‘We wanted it to be partof every decision. A lot of businessesthink they won’t be hacked and won’t beliable, but they will be.’’

As a result, he remapped the traininghis staff received and re-evaluated hisrecruitment process. In his staff training,he moved from typical IT support skillstowards learning about informationsecurity, about privacy laws, and theimpact a data breach could have on abusiness and its clients.

‘‘When I do cyber security awarenesstraining with our clients, I tell them thestory of how when I was in school, I wasthe one doing the hacking of the schoolcomputers. In our business, we are nothackers, but it’s the hacking mentalitythat we are looking for in our staff.’’

Recruiting for cyber security skills is adifficult task. Many companies look tooffshoring, or the recently restricted 457visa, but Rudduck says he does notrecruit for skills but for aptitude and theability to learn. ‘‘Often people with theright skills don’t have the right personal-ity to fit in our business,’’ he says. ‘‘We arelooking for the right people.’’

Groundbreaking inventions and a persistence to improve the lot of many● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Inventions● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Persephone Nicholas

For Dr Jordan Nguyen, the biomedicalengineer awarded ICT Professional of theYear at the 2017 ACS Digital DisruptorAwards, his success story started athome.

‘‘My mum’s an artist, she’s very socialand compassionate. I learned a lot aboutthe importance of human connectionfrom her. My father is a UTS professorwho invented things his whole life.

‘‘I got to see his inventions in artificial

intelligence, robotics and biological tech-nology. I found it fascinating.’’

Fast forward a decade or two, andNguyen is creating groundbreakinginventions of his own. He became awareof the challenges faced by people with adisability after an accident during thethird year of his engineering degree atUTS. He dived into a pool and hit his headon the bottom. Damage to his neckrendered him temporarily immobile andhe imagined what it would be like to livethat way permanently. It was a pivotalmoment – Nguyen knew he would use histalents to help others.

Years later, he still lives by a few wordshe has engraved on his iPod: ‘‘One life.Persist to improve many’’.

‘‘It’s a mantra that underpins all thedecisions I make and what I do. Itreminds me I only have one life and that asingle life has the potential to improvemany,’’ he says.

Nguyen’s commitment to helpingmany is clear, as is his passion for hiswork. In 2012, he completed his PhD on athought-controlled smart wheelchair,which was acknowledged in the UTSChancellor’s List of top theses.

In 2014, he became friends with Riley

Saban, a teenager with cerebral palsy.Motivated by Riley’s interest in techno-logy and determination to become moreindependent, Nguyen designed techno-logy that gave Riley more control over hisenvironment, allowing him to turn onelectrical appliances with his eyes. It wasa huge project for Nguyen, his team, Rileyand his family – and was featured in theABC documentary Becoming Superhu-man. His next project, also covered in thedoco, was even more ambitious – creat-ing technology that would allow Riley tofulfil his dream of driving a car.

Nguyen says having a purpose and vis-

ion for the project was vital. ‘‘The familysaid it didn’t matter if it didn’t work, butwe were pretty set on something happen-ing. No feat of human endeavour evergoes smoothly; it’s always a rollercoaster.Pushing limits takes persistence, courageand a great vision to work towards.’’

He says the project is proof of the valueof collaboration and communication.

‘‘I design and create entire systems, butover time I’ve realised it’s much better tobuild passionate teams and worktogether and collaborate with manypeople. You can’t just create lots ofdevices and put them out there. The flow-

on effect is important. We empowerpeople through technology and under-standing and knowledge. That’s why Icreate and communicate.’’

Nguyen has huge ideas. He has moremedia projects in the pipeline. His socialbusiness Psykinetic launches its assistivecomputer software early next year.

It’s exciting, but Nguyen puts human-ity first. ‘‘Technology is a tool. It augmentsus. It doesn’t replace human connection –it’s something we can harness, but it’s nota standalone thing. Its purpose is to helpand empower the human condition andideally work towards a better future.’’

Fireflies, age and the internet of things● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Networks● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Jonathan Porter

Samaneh Movassaghi sees herself leadinga team of passionate researchers.

What do fireflies, our ageing populationand the internet of things have incommon?

More than you might imagine, it turnsout.

Samaneh Movassaghi , the AustralianComputer Society’s 2017 ICT Student ofthe Year, got to thinking about fireflieswhen pondering how large groups ofhumans, all with life-saving gadgetsimplanted, might gather together in largegroups.

‘‘My research has found that a keyfactor in facilitating affordable and timelyhealthcare is a network of sensors thatcan be worn on the body, inserted subcu-taneously or introduced into the blood-stream, to monitor individuals for vitalhealth signs like heart rate, blood pres-sure, temperature and potential healthissues, and notify hospitals and doctors inreal time,’’ says Movassaghi.

These networks of sensors are calledwireless body area networks (WBANs).There are already 11 million such devicesimplanted in humans today and thatnumber is expected to rise to around halfa billion in the next few years as we runinto the perfect storm of more old people,and scarcer resources for their care.

‘‘WBANs are expected to cause a dra-matic shift in how people manage andthink about their health, similar to the

way the internet has changed the waypeople look for information and commu-nicate with one another.’’

In addition to saving lives, the wide-spread use of WBANs will reduce health-care costs by removing the need for costlyin-hospital monitoring of patients.

One major challenge with WBANs isthat there is no single entity or node thatcontrols all these WBANs, which meansthat these individual WBANs have to talkto each other and self-organise.

‘‘For example, if you have 10 peoplewearing WBANs in a meeting room, this

can lead to disruption of communicateddata, as well as interference anddegraded performance.

‘‘To help solve this, I have been inspiredby the synchronisation of fireflies innature.

‘‘Fireflies exhibit spontaneous syn-chronisation over a large area and with-out directive forces. I looked at themathematical model based on firefliesproposed at MIT back in the 1980s.’’

She says she was honoured to receivethe award for her work. ‘‘The ICT field is arapidly changing sector since we havemoved into a digital era which meanstechnology will be increasing the speedand breadth of knowledge turnoverwithin the society and economy.’’

Movassaghi loves working in the ICTfield because she says it gives her a tan-gible means of making a difference, ‘‘evenif it is in small in scope and scale’’.

And what does the future hold?‘‘During my PhD research I have solved

problems that bridge academic interestwith real-world applications. In thefuture, I see myself continuing this real-world focused research and on a scalethat makes a larger and more universalimpact.

‘‘Specifically, in five years, I see myselfleading a team of dedicated and passion-ate researchers, thinkers and engineerswho are at the forefront of change andare solving problems that are crucial tocontinued evolvement and well-being ofhumankind.’’

Bringing humans into the video loop● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Video● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Jonathan Porter

The Australian Computer Society’s ICTResearcher of the Year for 2017,Manoranjan Paul, is tackling a problemfew of us will be aware of, but which isvitally important to our daily lives as wesurf the internet and immerse ourselvesmore in the world of virtual and augmen-ted reality.

The problem can be summed up.Within the next two years, video is expec-ted to make up 80 per cent of all internettraffic. How can we compress all thatdata and save bandwidth?

‘‘People engage more when they watchvideos,’’ says the father of three, who didhis undergrad work at the BangladeshUniversity of Engineering and Techno-logy and has 16 years of research in videoand image coding under his belt.

‘‘Even today with current transmissionsystems you cannot use raw video. You

have to compress it – often by 1000 times.My research is in when you bring thehuman into the loop. If you understandhow people perceive something, then youcan use that information to do processingand compression, then you have theupper hand – you have the tools to do itmore efficiently.’’

Paul analyses brain processing, eyemovement and cognition, then uses thedata from that research to figure out howto produce higher quality on the areas ofthe screen the viewer is actually lookingat, saving processing bandwidth by con-centrating less on areas the viewer’s eyesare ignoring. The problem is furthercomplicated by the fact that men andwomen concentrate on different things.

Another area of Paul’s research isvideo summarisation. Let’s say you havea security video camera pointed at theoutside of your house while you are awayfor 10 days. ‘‘We use eye tracking data tofind what humans regard as importantevents in that video and provide a five-

minute video based on importantevents.’’

For example, the mail being deliveredat 3pm or a burglar paying a visit at 3am.

‘‘That gives you an overview you cansee within a very short time.’’

Paul says he finds his work incrediblyrewarding. ‘‘If you are looking at thevideo-on-demand industry, if you knowthat you can customise the video qualityso that a person can see better quality butyou use the same bandwidth and internettraffic, that gives the industry very goodvideo on demand – they see good qualitybased on their perceptions.’’

He says the award and the recognitionthat goes with it are vitally important.

‘‘The ACS is the top body in Australia inthis field. I consider it to be the top awardin my discipline and I am very proud toget it.’’

In the future, Paul sees himself headinga research team ‘‘with a good relation-ship with industry to contribute to thewellbeing of the Australian people’’.

Digital Disruptors Awards

Individual AwardsICT Professional of the Year:Jordan NguyenYoung ICT Professional of the Year(male): Phillip MathesonYoung ICT Professional of the Year(female): Margaret ZouICT Student of the Year:Samaneh MovassaghiICT Educator of the Year:Shanton ChangICT Researcher of the Year:Manoranjan Paul

Team/Project AwardsService Transformation for theDigital Consumer (Corporate):Statewide SuperGovernment: University ofQueenslandNot for Profit: Humanoid RobotProject TeamSkills Transformation of WorkTeams – Small (less than 20employees): Insane TechnologiesMedium (21-200 employees):GS1 AustraliaLarge (200+): Australian Tax Office

Pearcey Foundation AwardsPearcey Medallist: EmeritusProfessor Mike MillerPearcey Hall of Fame: Kate Lundy,Helen MeredithNational Entrepreneur Award:Collis and Cyan Ta’eed, co-foundersof Envato

Certified Professional(Cyber Security)

Be at theforefrontof yourprofession

A

S4 Monday 13 NThe Australian

www.Special Report DIGITAL DISRUPTOR AWARDS

Collaboration the key to success fo● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Technology The abilityto build passionateteams is recognised.

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Mark Eggleton and Joshua Gliddon

Emeritus Professor Mike Miller has strong opinions on what Australia needs to do to maintain its edge in innovation and IT.

Collaboration is the key to thriving in thedigital economy and it is a message rein-forced by many of the winners of therecent Australian Computer Society(ACS) Digital Disruptors Awards held inSydney.

It was reiterated by the winner of the2017 ICT Professional of the Year, DrJordan Nguyen, who credited much ofhis ground-breaking work to the ability tobuild passionate teams and to collaboratewith many.

Dr Nguyen, who is a biomedical engin-eer, says the reason his career has been sorewarding is he has always taken inspira-tion from great people and visionaries.Moreover, he is driven by his passion tohelp others through technology.

Chief executive officer of the ACS,Andrew Johnson, says Dr Nguyen, whosework has focused on inclusive techno-logy that transforms the lives of peoplewith disabilities, epitomises the inspiringnature of many of the award winners.

Mr Johnson said the Digital Disruptorswere incredibly inspiring.

‘‘To see so much talent pushing theenvelope and introducing game-changing ideas will undoubtedly haveencouraged our attendees to do thesame,’’ he said.

Other big winners on the night includethe Australian Taxation Office, whichpicked up the gong for a large employerthat has transformed the workplace and

upskilled its workforce ‘‘to use new ICTsolutions to improve performance, cul-ture, competencies and productivity.’’

Winners for transforming their digitalservice offering to customers includedSouth Australia’s Statewide Super andthe University of Queensland.

Also presented on the night were the

Pearcey Foundation Awards and tele-communications leader, and emeritusprofessor Mike Miller was the recipientof the annual Pearcey Medal.

Professor Miller has strong opinionson what Australia needs to do to main-tain its edge in innovation and IT in thecoming years. He believes the nation

must strengthen the links between theresearch happening in academia and thereal-world outcomes needed by Austra-lian industry.

‘‘We’ve got great research teams inAustralia, with lots of bright people,’’ hesaid.‘‘I have counted 17 teams working inthe area of artificial intelligence, but the

Helping tocombatthe hackers

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SMEs● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Joshua Gliddon

Technology security is hard for small andmedium-sized business. Unlike largeorganisations, they generally do not have,and cannot afford, dedicated IT andsecurity teams.

David Rudduck, founder and man-aging director of Gold Coast-basedInsane Technologies, has targeted thisniche with his business, which has beenoperating for the past 18 years.

According to Rudduck, SMEs are notimmune from hacking and databreaches, which is all the more import-ant with the incoming Notifiable DataBreaches, which comes into play on Feb-ruary 22 next year.

‘‘Many small and medium businessesassume that the NDB scheme doesn’tapply to them because their revenue isunder the $3 million threshold,’’ he says.‘‘But if they are dealing with financialinformation, patient information orinformation relating to children, they aresubject to the scheme.’’

Rudduck was the recent winner of theAustralian Computer Society’s SkillsTransformation Award (small business)at its recent Digital Disruptor Awards.This followed a significant realignmentof the six-strong team, moving the focusaway from managed services towardsSME security.

‘‘Security is often an afterthought forSMEs,’’ he says. ‘‘We wanted it to be partof every decision. A lot of businessesthink they won’t be hacked and won’t beliable, but they will be.’’

As a result, he remapped the traininghis staff received and re-evaluated hisrecruitment process. In his staff training,he moved from typical IT support skillstowards learning about informationsecurity, about privacy laws, and theimpact a data breach could have on abusiness and its clients.

‘‘When I do cyber security awarenesstraining with our clients, I tell them thestory of how when I was in school, I wasthe one doing the hacking of the schoolcomputers. In our business, we are nothackers, but it’s the hacking mentalitythat we are looking for in our staff.’’

Recruiting for cyber security skills is adifficult task. Many companies look tooffshoring, or the recently restricted 457visa, but Rudduck says he does notrecruit for skills but for aptitude and theability to learn. ‘‘Often people with theright skills don’t have the right personal-ity to fit in our business,’’ he says. ‘‘We arelooking for the right people.’’

Groundbreaking inventions and a persistence to● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Inventions● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Persephone Nicholas

For Dr Jordan Nguyen, the biomedicalengineer awarded ICT Professional of theYear at the 2017 ACS Digital DisruptorAwards, his success story started athome.

‘‘My mum’s an artist, she’s very socialand compassionate. I learned a lot aboutthe importance of human connectionfrom her. My father is a UTS professorwho invented things his whole life.

‘‘I got to see his inventions in artificial

intelligence, robotics and biological tech-nology. I found it fascinating.’’

Fast forward a decade or two, andNguyen is creating groundbreakinginventions of his own. He became awareof the challenges faced by people with adisability after an accident during thethird year of his engineering degree atUTS. He dived into a pool and hit his headon the bottom. Damage to his neckrendered him temporarily immobile andhe imagined what it would be like to livethat way permanently. It was a pivotalmoment – Nguyen knew he would use histalents to help others.

Years later, he still lives by a few wordshe has engraved on his iPod: ‘‘One life.Persist to improve many’’.

‘‘It’s a mantra that underpins all thedecisions I make and what I do. Itreminds me I only have one life and that asingle life has the potential to improvemany,’’ he says.

Nguyen’s commitment to helpingmany is clear, as is his passion for hiswork. In 2012, he completed his PhD on athought-controlled smart wheelchair,which was acknowledged in the UTSChancellor’s List of top theses.

In 2014, he became friends with Riley

Saban, a teenager with cerebral palsy.Motivated by Riley’s interest in techno-logy and determination to become moreindependent, Nguyen designed techno-logy that gave Riley more control over hisenvironment, allowing him to turn onelectrical appliances with his eyes. It wasa huge project for Nguyen, his team, Rileyand his family – and was featured in theABC documentary Becoming Superhu-man. His next project, also covered in thedoco, was even more ambitious – creat-ing technology that would allow Riley tofulfil his dream of driving a car.

Nguyen says having a purpose and vis-

AFRGA1 S006

WITH THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS

Platinum Partners

Gold Partner Event Partners Media Partner

ICT Professional of the YearDr Jordan Nguyen

ICT Student of the YearSamaneh Movassaghi

Australian National University

Young ICT Professional of the Year - MalePhillip Matheson

DXC Technologies

Young ICT Professional of the Year - FemaleMargaret Zou

Avanade

ICT Educator of the YearShanton Chang

University of Melbourne

ICT Researcher of the YearManoranjan Paul

Charles Sturt University

Small (under 20)Insane Technologies

CorporateStatewide Super

GovernmentMeDiCi & University of Queensland

Not for Profit

Humanoid Robot Project Team

Skills Transformation of Work Teams

Medium (21 - 200) GS1 Australia

Large (200+)

Australian Taxation Office

Service Transformation for the Digital Consumer

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ACS congratulates the 2017 winnersDr Jordan NguyenICT Professionalof the Year

6 Monday 13 November 2017 | The Australian Financial Review | www.afr.com

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Download at acs.org.au

Data Sharing FrameworksTechnical White PaperData Sharing FrameworksTechnical White Paper

AFR Monday 13 November 2017www.afr.com | The Australian Financial Review

S7Special ReportReimagination 2017

Identifying theopportunities indata deluge

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Data The gathering andanalysing of data isparamount to business.

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Ian Grayson

Data science on itsown is just one partof a machine.Emma Gray, ANZ chief digital officer

William Hill Australia chief executive Tom Waterhouse says data has been critical.

The data deluge sweeping the businessworld is offering exciting opportunitiesbut also causing rising challenges formany organisations. Those most suc-cessful at turning that data into actionwill be best placed to succeed in com-ing years.

Delegates at the recent ACSReimagination 2017 summit heardhow companies are taking vast datareserves and, through sophisticatedanalytics, gaining from a range ofinsights that previously would not havebeen possible.

‘‘We should really be thinking aboutthis as the fourth industrial revolu-tion,’’ UTS Business School dean RoyGreen told the summit. ‘‘The firstinvolved the move into towns andfactories, the second involved electri-city, the third was the internet, and nowwe have data.

‘‘Data doubles every three years and90 per cent of it is unstructured data, sothere are technological challenges. It’sgoing to require facilities with machinelearning and analytics at one level but

also it’s important to realise that it isinterdisciplinary.’’

Green says it is also a non-technological phenomenon in thesense that it requires design thinkingand an understanding of the new busi-ness models that will become possible.He points to the fact that Australia isonly 18th in global digital readinessrankings, so clearly a lot of work has tobe done quickly.

‘‘It’s interesting that this is happen-ing at the same time as a global pro-ductivity slowdown,’’ he says. ‘‘Whilewe have some frontier firms that areclearly on top of this and their pro-ductivity is going ahead apace, it ismore than offset by the laggards.’’

Speaking at the summit, William HillAustralia chief executive Tom Water-house said being able to gather andanalyse data has been critical in grow-ing his wagering business and allowingit to compete with international rivals.

‘‘When we started, we needed data tooptimise our marketing spend,’’ hesays. ‘‘We had to figure out how tooptimise it over our different brandsand use data to define what our busi-ness strategy would be.’’

Waterhouse says that during thepast two years there has been a focuson the use of data in every facet of thebusiness, from product developmentand trading to marketing and beingable to identify growth opportunities.

ANZ chief digital officer Emma Grayagrees, saying data is all about drivinginnovation across an organisation. It isabout finding more effective ways ofserving existing customers as well asmounting campaigns to secure newones.

‘‘We get a cross-functional teamtogether and a data scientist is onemember of that team,’’ she says. ‘‘Wealso have human-centred design andmarketing at the table. We start off bydeciding on what it is that we want todo (and) whether we have the data.Then can we get creative in how we canuse that data to drive the use case.’’

Gray says it becomes a big creativeprocess in which data is used to reach awider, longer-term goal. ‘‘Data scienceon its own is just one part of a machinethat is needed to take an idea fromincubation all the way through to

something a customer thinks is awe-some,’’ she says.

Adam Driussi, chief executive of dataanalytics company Quantium, told del-egates data can be used to serve cus-tomers in ways that deliver benefits tothem as well as to the business. Hepoints to work his firm completed withsupermarket chain Woolworths thatinvolved generating highly personal-ised purchasing recommendationsbased on prior shopping patterns.

‘‘Traditionally what would happen,when you think about a shopping cata-logue, is that everyone sees the sameads,’’ he says. ‘‘We built an algorithm towork out recommendations so thatwhen Woolworths sends out promo-tions, all customers will get individualads on items that are relevant to them.’’

As customer data becomes an evermore valuable resources for busi-

nesses, summit panellists also dis-cussed the issue of privacy. Theyagreed a balance has to be foundbetween ensuring data remains secureand using it to provide new services forcustomers.

‘‘There are very clear rules aboutwhat you have to keep private (and)there are clear restrictions on what canbe used,’’ says Gray. ‘‘We have to makesure we build an infrastructure thatallows us to step through a lot of thegates to say that, at every step, are weprotecting customer information (and)are we protecting their privacy . . . it’s areally big job.’’

Driussi agrees that privacy is criticalfor all businesses and consumers,however he warns that it is importantnot to get so hung up on things thatopportunities are missed.

‘‘If you go back in history, there arethings we laugh about now but werereal at the time,’’ he says. ‘‘When motorcars first appeared, they introduced arule that you had to have someonewalking in front waving a red flag.

‘‘It takes a little while for consumersto catch up with where technology isgoing and privacy is a good example ofthat. I think it is incumbent on us asindustry leaders to be part of thatdebate and make sure companies dothe right thing but also that, as a soci-ety, we don’t miss out on potentialinnovation.’’

Playing video games can build resilience and optimism in workers● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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Ian Grayson

Jane McGonigal says games have apositive impact on the workplace.

Most employers would frown on theirstaff playing video games at work,however research indicates it couldresult in better job performance and amore positive mental attitude.

Researcher and game designer JaneMcGonigal says playing games thatprovide positive feedback and the satis-faction of reaching goals can result insignificantly better engagement in theworkplace. ‘‘People experience more

positive emotions when they are play-ing a game,’’ she says. ‘‘They bond withothers and form teams more easily.’’

While not recommending employ-ees spend all their working hoursfocused on games, she says there areways to replicate the mental benefitsthat such activities can produce.

McGonigal has created a game calledSuperBetter that sets out a quest forplayers and rewards them for over-coming obstacles and reaching goals.She says playing the game every daycan ‘‘build personal resilience andmake people more optimistic’’.

‘‘Games create the underlying neuro-chemistry required for a resilient pur-suit of goals,’’ she told the ACSReimagination 2017 summit. ‘‘Whenyou look at brain scans, video gamingplay is the opposite of depression.’’

McGonigal says games have a posit-ive impact on players because the stim-ulate both the hippocampus andthalamus. When a player is makingmany fast choices in a game, activity intheir brain fires up so intensely that itresults in a feeling of positive reinforce-ment. ‘‘You go into learning hyperdrivewhere you can take advantage of the

opportunity to learn and improve,’’ shesays.

McGonigal points to the benefitsmany gamers reported after playingthe massively popular Pokemon Gogame. The team play and goal attain-ment factors within the game aid posit-ive reinforcement and lead to playersfeeling better about their lives.

‘‘The factors that make this gameappealing can be readily translated intothe real world. People come to feel that,no matter where you are, you can dosomething, and they get that good feel-ing that flows from success.’’

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We have a vision for Australia to be a world leader in technology talent that fosters innovation and

creates new forms of value

Our commitment to Australia’s future is built on three pillars:

CAPACITYEnsuring Australia has a growing ecosystem of technology professionals

to meet its economic growth needs

CAPABILITYThe development of superior skills to ensure our place higher up the value chain

CATALYSTSparking innovation – supporting businesses and government to use technology to transform

processes and reimagine customer experiences

8 Monday 13 November 2017 | The Australian Financial Review | www.afr.com