The Queensland Futures Institute convened a panel of influential policy leaders and guests on October 20th, 2021, at a breakfast event Queensland Policy Leaders Speakers Series: ‘A New Digital World’. The topic of the forum was with the 2032 Brisbane Olympics acting as unique enabler for investment and innovation, the panel members were posed the question “what does Queensland need to do to accelerate investment and growth opportunities in the context of opportunities and challenges of a ‘new digital world’?”
Each of the five panellists provided insights on this topic including Business Aspect’s Principal Consultant and National Practice Lead for Digital and ICT Advisory, Duncan Unwin. Duncan helps organisations make strategic use of digital technology, he is passionate about entrepreneurship and digital innovation.
Duncan spoke about enabling digital innovation in Queensland. Asking the question “how does technology innovation happen?”, he pointed to the example of American Airlines and the Sabre reservation system, a travel booking system that became the de-facto booking mechanism across travel agencies in America, wherein the system over the decade became more valuable than American Airlines. Duncan asked, “how can Queensland find its Sabre?” And more specifically, how do we leverage Queensland’s significant economic strengths to find a build economically valuable spinoffs for the Queensland economy?
He went on to highlight four transformation technology trends where great opportunity lies for Queensland industry and government:
- Internet of Things – pervasive communications networks and millions of distributed devices will collect masses of data about our world.
- Mobile Devices – we are all connected to the network now and we provide lots of data about ourselves all the time.
- Public Cloud – where this data will be stored and on-demand compute power will enable analysis.
- Artificial Intelligence – massive data sets and cheap compute will enable many of today’s expert human task to be replaced with AI.
He also highlighted various headwinds Queensland faces in driving economically valuable innovation through digital technology:
- Lack of technology talent
- Some challenges in access to entrepreneurial capital for technology start-ups
- Challenges in government and industry collaborating towards real innovation
Duncan spoke about a need for a call to action on utilising opportunities in Queensland, such as the construction boom that will be associated with the Olympics preparation, and climate change adaption, to develop Queensland into a world class innovation centre.
Policy Leaders Speakers Series: ‘A New Digital World’.
The Event was sponsored by Data#3 and the QUT Business School. Business Aspect is a wholly owned subsidiary of Data#3. For more information on the event, please visit the Queensland Futures Institute event page.
To learn more about how Business Aspect’s talented team can facilitate digital transformation in your business please reach out to Duncan and our highly experienced team of consultants through our contact email.