Australia Awards Virtual Event 2021 – Skilling for your Future

sort of environment the world that you'll be going back into as you continue your careers so we're going to be looking at this question of building your career preparing for a career in the fourth industrial revolution i had the opportunity recently to speak to greg vines about this topic now greg is the deputy director general for management and reform at the international labour organisation in switzerland greg is an exceptionally well respected and skilled leader in international uh affairs and international public servant he is an impartial consensus builder with decades of experience working with governments workers at employers across the asia pacific region internationally and in multilateral networks he is at the forefront of what we're talking about today what the new world of work is going to look like especially as we start to to emerge from covert what will the workplace look like how will technology shape that workplace and how are you going to position yourselves to make the most of those opportunities and how that will shape the future of work for you so i had the opportunity to sit down and talk to greg i'd like to play a little bit of that conversation for you now then we'll introduce our panel that'll be an opportunity again for you to ask your questions as we continue to explore this theme of preparing for your career in the fourth industrial revolution let's have a listen now to my conversation with greg vines vines thank you so much for giving us your time much appreciated it's a pleasure stance good to be with you when we talk about the future of work how different is it going to look in the 21st century uh look i think it's going to look incredibly different and um uh backing north covered came along and now the future of work really is um faced you know what i'd say is almost a perfect storm where we've got the the implications of the pandemic and just the chaos that that is wrought globally on jobs on employment on training on inequalities uh we've got the the issues around climate and the need for just transitions to the to the new technology the new uh carbon neutral need for production for work and then of course we've got the the so-called fourth industrial resolution uh revolution with um technology just just taking over everything so as i say it's almost this perfect storm of of uh um for the future of work and this is i think where it becomes even more relevant the uh ilo approach around a human centered approach to the future of work you know we see with technology enormous opportunities enormous opportunities to improve the life of people all around the world but there are also major major challenges and threats that we've got to address uh that we've got to make sure that it's people who are designing the future that we're not just responding to what the technology is doing to us and doing to the world when we talk about the fourth industrial revolution you know it's broadly agreed that the previous three industrial revolutions um benefited people the risk here with artificial intelligence particularly the rise of robotics is that people could become obsolete we need to you know behind all of this technology there's people you know this isn't inventing itself there are people there controlling it and we've really i think gotta come together as a as a global community uh to put in place the necessary protections to make sure that we do get the benefits of what technology can provide not just the challenges it's going to to throw up how do we ensure that the benefits of a fourth industrial revolution are indeed shared in a world where nations can put themselves first yeah look um sam what you're saying is exactly right and all of the work that we've done that's supported by the work the oecd and other organizations have done have shown that those inequalities the pre-existing covert have just got worse as a through covert and we could are concerned they're going to get worse with climate they're going to get worse with the technology of the fourth industrial revolut revolution as well and so what we've got to make sure is that the governments start to take a more um global regional perspective on these sorts of issues we hear that we hear the right words you know cop 26 recently we've heard governments saying the right words and recognizing the need for um for some sort of global unity we're seeing the same coming out of the g20 but now what we've got to do is turn that into action the words are there the stuff's on paper but we're not seeing it happen on the ground and we really need to look i think in australia's case for example and the the um scholarship program that australia runs i think is a very good example of the capacity to build those relationships to build that awareness across countries so that we can provide that assistance a country an advanced country like australia to be able to provide assistance to its neighbours in the region i think is going to be critical because we're not going to have a global recovery from all of these challenges unless it is truly global we've got to make sure that the whole of the world is able to move forward now not for a second do i underestimate the extraordinary challenge for that but if we don't as a as a as a humanity meet that challenge meet that challenge head on uh you know i fear what your introduction was that you know we are all just going to lose out from this but but having said that there is also extraordinary opportunity there is extraordinary opportunity the way that technology potentially can be used to support jobs to support skill development to support communities in lower income countries in countries that have got these massive challenges from climate from rising sea levels and so on uh but we've really you know we need our governments to be thinking beyond their own borders to be able to to really try and address this you've spoken in the past greg about the the mega drivers um that are going to really drive the 21st century you've touched on some of the climate here and demography and and uh you know the fourth industrial revolution um and globalization which has been a mixed bag hasn't it i mean on the one hand um it's led you know we live in a closer world today an explosion of technology and opening up of new markets and people lifted out of poverty but it's also revealing those inequalities that you spoke about and and the erosion of community and i wondered if you know given who we're talking to here as well the importance of community and the sustainability of community you know what we will see is that i think that technology that um you know new jobs new climate friendly jobs uh are going to give us that opportunity whether we grasp it or not a different thing but that opportunity to rebuild a lot of communities at the moment the world of work is almost borderless you know you particularly with the platform economies particularly with supply chains quite often you know the the geographical borders the sovereign borders are irrelevant to work that's being done you quite often don't know where somebody who's working for you or doing work for you you don't know where they are you don't know whose employment laws they're under you don't know what part of the community they are and i think that what we've really got to look at as part of this recovery as part of moving forward to to shape uh the impact of the of the fourth industrial revolution is really to look at how we can um use regional areas we use the opportunities for for new industries for new approaches to work not just in the major urban areas but get them out into those rural areas to build those communities at a distance and and i do believe that um you know technology is something that that it doesn't matter who you're living next to or what city you're living in or what town you're living in uh it breaks those breaks those borders but but for humanity's sake we've got to keep that interaction going and look and i think that is one of the interesting things about what we've you know this extraordinary two years uh that we've all just been through the reaction from people now so eager to get back into their workplaces i think i think people want a restoration of community i think they want to be part of community for their personal life will be for their working life so you know we need the we need to follow the people we need to follow the people we need to it comes back to what i said right at the start you know our approach so it's got to be human centered we can't let technology rule it we can't let global supply chain rule it we've got to have this focused around around people just a final thought greg before we go um for our awardees what advice from your own personal experience your work in this area what advice would you offer to them my advice to them and this is i mean i have not planned my career um i had no idea uh when i was you know studying that i was going to end up working for an international organisation in geneva it's really an opportunity it's really a case i believe of taking those opportunities you know to think about what you want to be able to do what and what's going to be the best way to get there is about that you know there are such tremendous opportunities out there the the participants in this program are obviously people with strong leadership capacity and you know i would like to call on them to take their capacity as leaders to step forward to really try and and take this experience that they've had not only to develop their own careers but to support their communities to support that building of international relationships um so the short advice is if there's an opportunity there take it you know just take it and particularly one that you get not just an intellectual stimulation from but something that you know touches you yeah and that's and that's the best way to drive a career do stuff that you enjoy and do stuff that can have an impact greg you're a man of you know my own heart there um always say always say yes and then work out how you're going to do it like that's been my motto it's best been a real pleasure to to talk to you thank you again no thanks very much sam it's great to catch up with you wasn't that fantastic i mean yeah give them a round of applause it was it was a really great conversation i had with with greg because it could have gone on for longer in fact we chatted afterwards for a lot longer but those questions about how we come together in a world that's increasingly smaller and yet we know that we're seeing the strains aren't we we're seeing the rise of populism borders going back up increasing nationalism i think covert has recast all of that technology is changing the way that we work what it means for the future of communities i think greg touched on a really interesting thing there and all of you in this room are all here because you're already engaged with that you're all risk takers otherwise you wouldn't be here the ability to say yes i saw all of you a lot of you nodding when he said take the opportunity and you do need to grab that opportunity don't you need to take the opportunity and then work out later how is this going to work but say yes first and all of you have done this but what happens when you go home um what's how do you reconcile your own personal growth with your future back home everybody changes when i lived away from australia for 20 years and i was a different person when i came back different even from people in my own family so how do we manage that what's the balance between personal ambition and your desire to serve your own countries your communities your international global citizens and yet you all come from somewhere what's the importance of community and what about the world of technology many people say right now that the biggest nation in the world is facebook um and and in many respects it is it it is uh extra territory or nation people belong to facebook world um you almost like their own form of citizenship so that's and that's challenging governments and challenging the ability of governments to legislate and deal with with these new companies that emerge out of the changes of technology so all of that we want to talk about during our panel we're going to have a discussion amongst the panelists now and then we'll open it up for q a days so think about your questions it's really important that we get those questions in today it's your chance to to ask the panel that we have here today their advice or to challenge them or to you know whatever questions are on your mind let me introduce the panel that we have have been waiting patiently to join us john carr is the senior director for technology programs at the asia foundation he oversees a multi-country portfolio of tech focused initiatives designed to promote prosperity and inclusive growth in the indo-pacific region john holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the university of california a master's degree in public administration from the university of washington australia awards alumni fei wong so is the ceo and co-founder of kumpilid if i hope i've pronounced that right if i pronounce that right compel it is that right okay very good thank you and recently became a national coordinator of the 1000 digital startup movement faye is an active ecosystem builder who believes in the power of networking and fey holds a master of peace and conflict studies and attended the university of sydney of course pointed out she's been where all of you are here today as an australia awards alumni professor carl benedict freya is a global thought leader on the future of work and how technology is altering the workforce and our economies he is the oxford martin city fellow and founder and director of the program on the future of work and oxford martin's school at the oxford martin school university of oxford dr jenny gordon is with me here on the stage an honorary professor at the center for social research and methods at the australian national university she's also a non-resident fellow at the loewy institute one of australia's leading think tanks on foreign policy jenny is a member of the australian international agricultural research center's monitoring evaluation and learning advisory panel there's a mouthful and the asian development bank institute's advisory committee please thank everybody for joining us here today now again remember submit your questions to the panel and during the course during the course of discussion and then we'll we'll come to our q a don't wait till the end send those through you will see the ask a question box on the bottom left hand corner of your screen and of course we look forward to your thought-provoking questions let's get into the discussion let me start with you carl and i'll bring you in john on this as well what does the future of work look like john uh well uh it's we we don't know i think that's one of the first uh points to consider i mean i think we're at an inflection point where new technologies are very likely going to be changing the way manufacturing uh takes place in the developing and developed world there's going to be a lot more automation that automation is going to be smarter there's going to be a lot more connected devices those connected devices are going to work together and it's very likely that in some instances they'll be an impact on jobs and i think that's one of the things that people are most concerned about which is as these new technologies come online there's less demand for for certain types of jobs and i think they're it's really important to stress that certain types of jobs are more affected than others we can talk about that as we go along um but i think also something important to stress is that these new technologies are actually tools uh for change and so there may be new opportunities that come on come online as a result of their introduction that lead to more productivity gains and ultimately create jobs so to maybe to answer your question we don't know but we expect some turbulence uh in labor markets that uh i think best advice to governments in the region is is is to consider managing these changes rather than taking a laissez-faire approach and a hands-off approach yeah carl so much of this revolves around technology and i put this question to greg vines and i'd like to get your thoughts on this just after what john said there about the way that technology is going to make some jobs obsolete create new jobs and our preparedness for that there is a doomsday theory isn't there and people see the worst in this and they say that we'll become the slaves of the robots that artificial intelligence will be the masters of the universe and that humans become redundant that's a worst case scenario but one that's already been put out there how do we ensure that technology works for us and not the other way around well as john mentioned i think the only way i think we know about the future is that we are pretty bad at predicting it but we do know what capabilities machines today have and and as our research and others have shown machines still perform quite poorly when it comes to complex social interactions so the state of the art here is probably best described by leukemia price during test competitions where chatbots tried to convince humans of them being a person and some people in the field argue there was a breakthrough a couple of years ago when one chatbot managed to convince 30 of human judges of it being a person but it did so by pretending to be a russian orphan a 13 year old boy speaking english as a second language with no understanding of english culture and this is basic text communication right when it comes to much more complex in-person and type of social interactions uh humans still hold the comparative advantage and the same is to true of creative tasks the same is true of complex perception and manipulation tasks it's a future in which machines have taken over all the jobs is if it will ever happen very very distance distant that doesn't mean that there will be any losses in the process and there was during the first industrial revolution the luddites as we all know famously rioted against the mechanized factory and then they didn't stand to benefit from mechanization themselves and so their resistance made sense and in similar ways i was mentioned during the introduction many communities have suffered from automation and offshoring where jobs have dried up whether due to automation or globalization we've seen increases in crime we've seen deteriorating public services and and in the united states we even see increases in suicide and substance abuse and as a consequence so this is having a lot of bad uh social consequences consequences as it is and and we don't have to you know predict the jobless future or dystopia and to find the problems uh we have challenges enough as it is yeah jenny um that's really interesting what carl raised there i think particularly questions of inequality and people who feel left behind and we've already seen and people in this room are going to be going back to their countries and we've seen the impact of globalization and inequality um improving people's lives on the one hand but on the other hand leaving people behind and i think you know as carl mentioned there that manifests itself in a political blow back as as well so how do we manage this time um and and of of mass movement of people increasing refugees we're seeing and climate change is only going to contribute to that the impact of technology how do we manage that to ensure that those left behind don't stay behind someone who's going to lose their job as a truck driver because of automated vehicles doesn't get thrown onto the scrap heap that's a big question and from a development construct our model we've had of development where low-wage nations were able to kind of get manufacturing take advantage of scale take advantage of technology transfer and then lift the wages so you saw that you know the models japan korea south korea china incredibly successful approaches to development and so one of the challenges is going to be for developing economies is going to be what's the alternative if automation means that those low wage jobs and that the value of scale is no longer as big as it used to be so that's actually one of the big challenges of development so when we're thinking about developed economies it's a slightly different question because if you think about what's happened with globalization and technology it's lifted an awful lot of people across a developing world out of poverty but it has led to pockets of real inequality particularly in countries that didn't have much of a redistributive system the united states is an example is a classic example of that and it's great to see economists who'd been pretty much you know in the vein of well they should just move to where the jobs are and retrain actually go hang on a sec they don't move um and when they don't move then the value of their assets fall their support systems are in those locations their ability to move is quite limited and so we actually have to think about place-based strategies that actually build up alternatives for people and one of the things i think we need to do is teach people to have really productive leisure and have sufficient redistribution that people can live a good life and work out what to do that's really valuable to the community and valued by the community and so it shifts a little bit yourself and your well-being based around your paid employment and your salary being the indicator of your value to what are you giving to the community and to the people around you that is an indicator of your value because that's the stuff that's going to grow the stuff that's going to grow is artisanship design work uh social services caring services that's where the big growth in jobs is going to be that's really interesting but you've got to have sufficient income to support that i'll come to faye in just a minute but that's really interesting jenny because you know i've spoken to people about this and they say that robots for instance will end up doing and they're already doing a lot of the work of surgeons but the nurse may be because of the personal interaction the human touch may become even more valued is that the sort of thing you start to see where humans where there is a human engagement we start to value that more well i think we already value it as people as people in our relationship not in the market don't value it in the marketplace and the challenge is going to be you know having enough production and productivity growth to support paying everybody a bit more evenly and paying that value so people sort of say well you should pay more but at some point you can't just take from one bit and give to the other bit because well first of all these people never want to give it up who've got it right and so you're going to actually have to grow the pie building equality is much easier if you've got a growth going on and so we do need to use technology to really enhance productivity and that's been one of the interesting challenges if we've seen this digital revolution and we haven't seen considerable growth in in productivity as being delivered by it and so that's one of the things got to work out how to do and there's not a lot laying behind that but um to my mind that's the sort of the big challenge for developed economies and for the developing economies it's looking at alternative strategies beyond the we're going to sell exports to the developed world um because you know that's where the market is and in fact the market the big market for things where scale and application of technology to lower wage labor is going to be within those developing economies so africa selling into africa enormous opportunities to massively improve productivity through that that approach um and so a lot of that is going to be going on and then the other thing that's really valuable is the skill sets and so you're sitting here the people i can see in this room with this amazing skill set and a whole range of areas right and one of the things i really think is important is not just coding right so digital revolution fourth industrial evolution is not about teaching everybody to code it's about teaching people to engage effectively with technology to be able to identify what technology is really useful for you to use what technology will make your job easier will make other people's lives easier and will enable things to be to be done better and so that's the skill that we really need rather than the ability of everybody to code faye you are you've been where all the people in this room are right now i want you to draw on your experience um with the australia awards and your experience in going back home and the work you're doing now in this rapidly changing world if it's about preparing for the future if it's about skilling yourself for the future we heard earlier today about being the architect of your career what should people in the room here be thinking about and looking to well um one of the mantra i always say to myself because i'm actually now speaking on behalf of the people who who received australia awards you know and then we will bring it back to our home country and actually do something it's actually we never um not acting based out of fear so looking our hearing about like the perspective of you know yannick and john um when we talked about industrial change you know this fear was already there since the 50s you know when the factories were set in in europe um so actually in indonesia for the last few years we've actually initiated a huge conference by the digital ecosystem players in the digital economy startups innovations corporations but the brand is actually the theme the future is not digital it's just to spike the conversation that like you all said you know um later on we will evolve to focus more on what humans does best so creativity uh decision to manage conflict aviation try to find solutions and digital platform it's it's just a way for us to do all of those things better so i don't think the fear is justified to withhold us to do something impactful i think it's actually a very good way for us to see how we can make this into a a better world you know all of us the old australian award is um doing different fields and sectors um and and when we talked about the current generation because i work a lot with 20 years old um it's already very different the way they see the world you know and it's also very different the way they see the career development and how they actually enhance themselves it's not practical anymore sometimes it's it's a lot of times horizontal because the possibilities the channels of learnings the sectors are all endless you know the channels are all there um enabled by all of this digital platform so then we actually when we talked about talent when we talked about sustainability when we talked about solutions and then how the current generations actually uh value things because um currently we see a lot of young people talking about welfare and impact um instead of you know like um um actually like getting like all the investment and profiting and all that of course like we will we we i mean there are like so many like groups of people but then um i think i think in different sectors things are changing in the in the in the human um evolutions as well not just the digital and the industrial uh part yeah that's a really good point john so much of the world and the challenges of our world depend on our ability to work together and looking around the room here and a feature of the australian awards is that you bring people from the region from all different backgrounds and people learn from each other and take that back but we know when it comes to the big challenges of our world um it's often you know nations putting themselves first or borders going back up and part of covert was to retreat behind borders because you were safer we've seen difficulty yes in the vaccinations have been developed but in the roll out of the vaccinations getting that to all the different parts of the world climate change is another example we have people here from the pacific and we saw the recent cop conference and the complaint at the end of it that here again was the developed world or the big powers dominating the agenda and those who are at the front line of the impact of climate um still struggling so looking forward how do you see the fourth industrial revolution the technology the impact in that do you see that bringing us together and creating more multilateral ways of dealing with the challenges the world faces or do we see a greater sense of nationalism how do you see that playing out uh well i think there's really a great deal of recognition with in the big intergovernmental organizations of need to move beyond just sole focus on trade-based cooperation and what i mean by that is if you look at apec or you look at asean uh i think even if you go back and you look at cop and there's there's this recognition that focusing on inclusive growth is a real important priority for the region in is in the asia pacific region specifically i mean i i can only speak for that part of the world it's where i work and i think that it's linked to this issue of of technological change and the challenge to workers i think politicians around the world are all concerned about employment um they don't want to see circumstances evolving out of control that lead to a large scale unemployment there's a need to cooperate regionally on and focus on making sure that communities that haven't traditionally benefited from the vet from from growth and development and trade because asia is a beacon to the world about the success of cooperation towards trade goals um this the benefits of that cooperation need to be shared and distributed more widely i think people recognize that in the region they're trying to find ways to work towards that end and then when you're when you're thinking specifically about the future of work i think um there's a great deal of recognition that there needs to be more done to focus on human resource development in the region there needs a better understanding of the skills gaps and challenges that workers are going to probably face as you know technology really ends up becoming more demanding of workers you need to have more advanced skills those workers are going to need to get those skills somewhere so there's a lot of conversations now in asean and apec about how to enhance you know kind of old-fashioned uh t-vet interventions like training vocational education and training technical training how to enable that with new platforms um like faye was mentioning that platforms are great tools for connecting workers with work but also workers with information on how to get re-skilling opportunities uh how to get access to education information how to get access to government information government services so discoverability is a big piece of the platform revolution too and that's going to help workers and i think there's a lot of different dimensions to this problem and no one is a master of all these details but i think governments in the region are trying to figure this out they're making a good faith effort to understand it they realize that there's potentially some headwinds that are real threats to the prosperity in the region because i think a lot of middle-income countries um uh as jenny was mentioning have relied over the years on on labor intensive models of development and that could be undermined in some respects so i think uh you know one of the things that economies in the region need to do is focus on restructuring or structural reforms that generate more dynamism locally that sectors like financial services need to be disciplined in certain ways so that they're more competitive and that there's more capital available to entrepreneurs who want to try new experiments and and and perhaps generate new jobs using the new technologies that might potentially offset some of the job losses so so there's a lot of discussion about these issues and whether there's going to be great cooperation towards those ends who knows but they're on the table they're not uh necessarily running away from these issues i want to say today i mean governments in the region and and it's something that uh you know we wrestle with uh because states have their best interests in mind oftentimes that's at odds with the need to cooperate but in this case i think there's some opportunities especially in places you know when you look at asean for example there's there's a lot of coordination and discussion around these topics uh in human resource uh development in particular so um i hope that that's kind of gives a little bit of that interest to answer that question yeah no well no there is a multifaceted issue and it cuts across many things you pointed out and carl to bring it back to technology um everyone in this room is going to get returned to countries that are really now on the front line of this big uh geopolitical challenge of our time and that is the the future of democracy vis-a-vis rising autocracy or author or authoritarianism in the world um and that's being played out to varying degrees everywhere right now and i want to ask you about the role of technology in this whether it be some of the you know on the one hand um the ability to bring people closer together the ability of social media platforms to inspire revolutions as we've seen in some parts of the world yet at the same time redefining what privacy is the intrusion into people's lives the long arm of the state that can peer into our lives and technology enhancing that how do you see technology in this challenge of our time do you see it as a as an ongoing democratizing force or one that potentially also enables a greater degree of authoritarianism more control over people's lives it's a great question i mean first of all if we look at patterns of economic development historically global knowledge networks have been absolutely critical so britain took the lead in techno technology in the 18th century with the first industrial revolution and what made america able to catch up so swiftly was a wave of migrants from britain to the united states that brought their skills and technological knowledge know-how and for the past 130 years immigration has been the key driver of growth and prosperity in the united states what made china catch up so rapidly was the fact that 20 million immigrants lived in taiwan hong kong and the united states and as china opened up they brought in their skills and expertise and took advantage of new business opportunities that opened up in special economic zones uh in the south and other places and as well but as we all know the patterns of democracy have proceeded quite differently in the united states and and in china and more broadly i mean if you go back to arab spring yes there was a sense that um the internet and connected devices were a force of democratization allowing people to coordinate and giving them a voice even in countries where state media dominated and at the same time we do see that countries have been able to use artificial intelligence quite effectively to monitor uh some parts of their population shaana is experimenting with this and even tying a certain credit system um in certain regions um two artificial intelligence based um surveillance um and um in addition to that there's some evidence that that system is being exported to other countries so i don't think that one can suggest that digital technology is either a force of democratization or a force of conserving political power it's a tool that can be employed by different regimes in very different ways yes if we look at belarus today um the local population managed to deploy digital technology to coordinate in quite effective ways but the government is now responding to that with additional support and technological expertise from russia and try and train that in so it's very much you know a race with the sort of bottom-up vision of the internet as it was originally conceived and tim burns lee who invented the web is now actually developing a new structure called solid in which you know people will store and process their own data rather than you know leaving your data to service on facebook you restore your update your data yourself and allow it to communicate with the platforms and apps and you wanted to so it's very much dependent on technological choices going forward and no doubt the political institutions that countries have will determine those technological choices not the other way around jenny can i bring you around the question of immigration because you know what we're seeing here is the people watching online the people here in the room is the movement of people um immigration i think we've already pointed out pointed out today as enriched countries and the movement of people these energizers economies how do you see that going forward and the ability of countries in a much smaller world to be able to incorporate that and particularly as we start to see the impact of climate change and the mood force movement of people as a result of that as well um you know the the it's changing the nature of of societies of economies there's often a drain from certain countries to other countries and what happens to those countries left behind how do you see that playing out immigration is just such a fraught area for governments and we know that anti-immigration sentiment is one of the things that you know populist parties harness and will use to sort of sway opinions so it's one of the real challenges and immigration has enormous benefits for the countries that are receiving workers but sometimes it actually and people and sometimes it can have costs for the the sending countries you know so the question is about the benefit balance between you know the sending countries may be losing we're always concerned about brain drains uh but to some extent the idea is you bring people here they experience things as you have done and then they take that knowledge information back with them and the same way when we bring immigrants in um they're bringing their knowledge cultures and it's about the openness of a society to those new learnings and that enables them to harness that and to value the diversity that's going on the challenge is what is that level and what is the you know and it's going to be a social construct it's the same way with you know the differences between european countries the scandinavian countries who have a very high level of redistribution um because that's the way governments are big and they want the government to redistribute a lot of income and to you know direct it you have the united states it has a much lower level of redistribution but those are again where those societies kind of decide they want to be through various democratic processes different societies one more homogeneous or one much more multicultural and that has a different impact on research that has an enormous impact so homogeneous societies tend to be a bit more interested in redistribution and you'd think that but then you look at japan which doesn't have such a big redistribute and it's quite homogeneous and japan is now of course because they're aging looking at having to bring in and relaxing and changing their migration rules because suddenly they need people and they need young people and so the dynamics of migration policy are always changing it's always a difficult balance to find what we do know and i would say with the productivity commission when we did the migration modeling is that it you know and we looked at we tried to understand the impact and there is we have seen in covert there is some impact if you bring in a big increase in your labor supply you will see a little dampening of wages across the board but what we didn't see with some really good research done by bob brunig was that it didn't necessarily impact particular groups more than others right if anything there might have been a slight dampening of wage growth but by and large that just happens to be because where we were we'd had this massive investment boom in the lead up to the mining you know can you know during mining construction massive investment boom a lot of capital coming in brought a lot of people in didn't see any dimmy mission saw really strong wage growth but then you had a period of slower investment but the labor supply's still growing not too surprisingly sorry i'm an economist you know i've got to think this way we didn't see the growth in wages so but at the same time you got lots of other benefits i mean where would australia be without asian cuisine without italian cuisine i mean honestly we'd be absolutely in the you know you guys have it really which we that's experienced and coffee oh my gosh you know can i go to faye wong so because faye this this raises questions and again pertinent for people with the australia awards raises questions about the ecosystem that we're talking about in this changing world um what is centralized uh is this uh a eurocentric view of the world again does this favor the rich countries how does a country like indonesia engage with this and when it comes to something like the australia awards for instance and people coming to australia to engage in that what we have the technology now for people to do that elsewhere and staying in there in their home countries talk to us a little bit about how indonesia sees this the perspective from there and what a global ecosystem looks like so i actually started the fancha from co-working industry simply because i saw it from the ecosystem perspective and i thought with the limited resources that i had you know going back you know i had my master's degree i was just a worker for international august organizations but i was still just an individual and how i could actually create an aquarium to see like what kind of platform what kind of bowl that can make the entrepreneurs more successful so it's all about providing equal access to uh more enterprise success and then if you know indonesia we are actually number four um populations in the world we are the biggest in southeast asia we are the biggest archipelago in the world we are the biggest muslim population in the world and we do have all of the challenges but then i thought you know if you have entrepreneurial mindset problem is money so it's actually providing you with a lot of opportunities and talking about the ecosystem and how we can actually create all of this access um [Music] profit 19 and the panda me was sort of blessing in disguise i think first for some cases in indonesia for us also to enhance the capacity building and the growth of entrepreneurship startups innovations um early to 2020 we we did sort of like a startup weekend if you heard of startup weekend it's a very you know like well-known curriculum sort of that done for like a weekend from friday to sunday but then normally it was actually done in a lot of spaces in small scale like 50 people maximum 100 people so when we started to mobilize all the hubs because i also started to initiate the co-working indonesia association so i'm the president of co-working indonesia now it's my fifth year so we have all of these networks you know google has more than 100 networks in 34 30 not 38 cities so we see all of them are like agents of like building the ecosystem but you need to have the engine you need to have the programs to measure them so with digital um platform at that time we were still a little bit confused what to use we were using at least six or six digital channels but then we could get more than 1500 registrants from 29 provinces indonesia has 34 provinces so that's almost all indonesia and if you know how big we are and how far one location to the other this is a huge success you know we encourage young people to connect to form a team to create solutions tribute to coffee 19 at that time so along the years now until like you know almost two years towards the pandemy um a lot of ecosystem players and also us you know we've been doing all of these initiatives and working together with ministries corporations um and then the initiatives becomes more impactful in terms of quantity and quality we can actually bring in specific skills and mentorships that's before only contained or isolated more or less in java island or in jakarta i mean jakarta is really big you know jakarta and its satellite cities are as big as australia you know we are like 25 million people so if like one person is tackling one australian it's like done so but then when we are being national player sometimes we forget that jakarta is not indonesia so um all of this platform is actually for us it's enabling us to what i call accelerating the serendipity it's allowing all of these connections to provide um in more impactful solutions and faith we'll go to our questions from the audience in just a moment but just to follow up to that phase because what you're talking about there um is a microcosm of something that we may see everywhere right i mean you're talking about a a combination of technology um an event like covert which accelerates the use of technology to to develop new ecosystems but even for things like the future of australia awards for instance will be changed necessarily by the advent of technology and new ways of doing things and developing new ecosystems wouldn't it yes and actually when i got my scholarship it was not called australia awards it was back in 2007 it was called australia development scholarship and at that time you need to be either civil servants researchers at universities or workers at non-profit organizations and then i was actually questioning this because you know development of a country or economic development or um all of this it's actually not just being pushed from those sectors you know this is why my master's is actually peace and conflict studies which was relevant to what i was doing at that time but then now i think australia awards also involves and and see you know the benefit of having a lot of skills developed in in the business sectors um in in economic sectors um so now you can actually can come from like the startups um sectors the the technology sectors the corporations banking um and then you can actually still be part of australia awards which i think is very very refreshing because when we talked about development of a country of public diplomacy it's not just from the development sectors let's go to some questions now from um our audience now is anyone in the room here have a question for us if anyone wants to raise their hand okay yes this one straight down the front very quick oh thank you uh and uh it was nice um this panel discussion and uh by the way i'm i'm lilona from sri lanka so now we came to australia in 2020 january so we are going back to our countries after the kovid third wave in my country so it's not the country we left in 2020 so it's totally new society some uh technological advancements is there even in public sector i'm i belong to the public sector in sri lanka so my question is like when we hear the keynote address by rachel pillay she talked about being the architect of your own career but like if you think as community leaders in our communities back in sri lanka now we have to be architect also our careers as well as others lives sometimes we have to take decisions so my question is like in uh when we planning economic and social development in our communities like development country developing countries how we can make sure that the human center designs of human centered same human centered designs are in the heart or co heart of the uh you know this this technological advancement so how we can be sure that it is in the planning sector because planning phase actually so uh for example like uh during the kovit situation we had in sri lanka we had home learning system it was newly introduced in our country but as jenny mentioned that inequality is a big uh big issue there like people who had a student who had nice smartphones got a chance to do the home learnings easily but not the people yeah so how how can we address these issues i get what you mean let me go to you jenny on this because it does go to some of the things you raised before and that is about equality um and and and redistribution planning i think um i think john mentioned before the ability to plan for this and i'll go to john in just a moment but in terms of equality redistribution and building this into the planning yeah i think one of the one of the things we need to understand is technology is not neutral right technology always you know you need to be thinking about it from a human-centered perspective right and so one of the things that very briefly carl mentioned very briefly is data so if you think about the fourth industrial revolution we're talking about platforms technology platforms we're talking about data that is the exchange of data that underpins all of these things and so as soon as we start thinking about those things and the way policies are made and the way data is transmitted is who has access to those platforms whose data is being used how is it being shared who's got control over it and those are all things that immediately means that technology is not neutral and so you really need to be and i'm hoping many of you will not sort of go even if you go into business and you start your own businesses you still should be influencing the shape of policy in your country regulatory policy to try and make sure that technology that's being adopted the standards that are being put in place are as human centered and enabling for everybody else as possible so part of that is anti-monopoly type stuff we're worried about the facebooks and the control and the like but a lot of it is much smaller it's around you know who has control over their data um and you know ensuring that people do it's interesting uh uh don't remember whether it was john or carl mentioned that um you know tim berners-lee is developing i think might have been carl you know sort of a uh a way of having your own data wallet that belongs to you um those are the kinds of things that are really important so when we're thinking about the skills that you need to take forward in whether you're in the private sector whether you're in the public sector whether you're in the not-for-profit sector that set of skills is very much about thinking about technology and what is it doing for people and there's actually you know genevieve bell recently gave a talk on this she's a professor at anu that heads up something called the 3ai institute and it's cybernetics and cybernetics has been around a long time but all those feedback loops and the fact that technology isn't neutral and we need to understand those complex system feedback loops whether whenever we're choosing what technology to use when we're developing technology we need to be thinking about who's going to use it how can it be misused as well and so the set of skills you need to do that come not just as i said before with coding they come with thinking the steps before you get down to code the thing that makes it work and that's the set of skills that you know you can bring multiple disciplines to bear on doing that well so it's not just you know whether you're a you know a computer scientist it's actually whether you're an economist whether you're an engineer you know whether you're a social scientist you know a lot about the systems that you know so you've been studying particular systems really whether they're systems of engineering whether systems of economics whether they're systems of the way health systems are delivered the human body works and all that interacts with technology and that's all about you know what we're bringing so it's really up to the young people who kind of get that to make sure that the old digital dinosaurs you know can be bring them along and say hey recognize what the impacts of these are and that's what we've got to work on and guess what me sitting here by myself can't do it i need to get a bunch of other people in the room who know how to think about these things who can also give me their perspectives because it's bringing those people together that actually label you to use technology far more effectively so that's not quite getting to the deep redistribution questions but it's very important component of this fourth industrial revolution making sure it's a positive thing for the for the globe and for people uh as opposed to a negative thing we're getting questions coming in um i'll group these together and put them to various members of the panel the first one is what is the importance of universal basic income i was thinking about that myself actually it's a very good question in accelerating the fourth industrial revolution and dealing with those people i suppose you feel as it could be left behind in this there's a question directly to faye wong so looking for a job actually faye i'm interested in joining kunpo after my studies how can i become part of that and what qualifications are looking for i'll come to you in a minute on that and and the last one here is can we predict what the skills of the future will be and will it be more focused on particular sectors john can i go to you on the importance of universal basic income what role do you see that playing if any well um i i'm not a real expert on the very specific thing that is uh upi but um i'll say this uh social protection schemes of some kind are are really important um and uh they're important for a couple of reasons but one who we really need a kind of social safety net to allow workers the time they need to to make the transition and to manage this process of change so a good social protection scheme is is absolutely critical um i i'd say that because we really don't know um as i said at the beginning what's coming but i can talk you know i think there's some really interesting analogies uh coming from california where i am currently uh you know in san francisco and los angeles uh early in the history of the 20th century we very wisely i'm being sarcastic uh removed all of the public transportation uh infrastructure for rails for light rail in favor of freeways um and there wasn't a lot of uh dialogue over this uh this policy decision it just it just happened a lot of elites influenced that process without a lot of input from the public and we ended up with gridlock in many of our big urban cities i think if you know you look there's there are many analogies but if you look at social media platforms for example uh without much input from the public we decided to completely throw out our old information architecture and the way we share information in favor of social media platforms and now we have some problems that we didn't expect misinformation disinformation spreading all over the world making people fearful of vaccines who would never even considered being afraid of vaccines before so now we're facing a wave of change on on the future work front and so i think it's really important for communities to have a say in these changes and to have a dialogue stakeholders need to be involved because of the disruption in the unintended consequences and so that kind of leaks back to this idea of ubi or social protection scheme of some kind we need some kind of mechanism to manage and moderate the impact of some of these changes that's not to say we give people free money in perpetuity at least that's not what i think we should do but we need to smooth the process of transition from one job to the next allow people the time they need to to adapt to these changes to many of which as we said at the very beginning we can't anticipate or know at this point so i think it's really important cal what are the skills of the future do you think well i do think that we can enforce something from looking at what computers do well and what they can't do that well and if you look historically computerization has largely been confined to routine rule-based activities that we can easily specify in computer code and that therefore can be readily automated what we're seeing now with advance

2022-02-06 22:42

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