Events

The Future of Work in the Digital Age Seminar Series

What is digitalisation doing to the nature of work? Can we predict the skills we’ll need in 2051? What can ‘economic complexity’ tell us about the future of Australian manufacturing? What does a society focused on quality of life look like?

The Australian Industrial Transformation Institute is pleased to host some of Australia’s leading academics as we examine the future of work.

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THE PROMISE OF DIGITILISATION AND AUTOMATION

Prof. Hugh Bradlow, President | The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering

1:30pm (ACST), 3 March 2022, Online RSVP.

In The Promise of Digitilisation and Automation Professor Hugh Bradlow will  argue that the advantage of automation is not productivity but the reduction, and possibly ultimately elimination, of human error.

The rise of the “Internet of Things” over the last decade promises digitilisation of the physical world. Combined with Artificial Intelligence, this creates a promise of automating many tasks currently done by humans. However, the nature of this automation is yet to be understood.

Professor Bradlow will argue that there is a greater likelihood that automation will complement human work than replace it. He will focus on the progression of automated vehicles and smart buildings as examples.

RSVP to The Promise of Digilisation and Automation

Upcoming Future of Work in the Digital Age seminars:

Prof. Toby Walsh FAA FACM, Laureate Fellow & Scientia Professor of AI, School of CSE, UNSW Sydney will be discussing the implications and impacts of future demands for workers’ skills on Australia's training system.

Dr Mark Dean Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow at the Carmichael Centre within the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.

Prof. John Quiggin Professor of Economics, University of Queensland will be reaching for utopia. How might the redistribution of work and leisure enable us to leisure to live a more just and dignified life?

Past Events

AUTOMATION NATION

Dr Navinda Kottege|CSIRO

This event was held on the 17 Feb 2022, a recording will be made available shortly.

In this first instalment of the Australian Industrial Transformation Institute's (AITI) Future of Work in the Digital Age Seminar Series Dr Kottege talked about the current state of robotics and automation and, drawing on insights from global trends, attempt to paint a picture of what the future of work may hold. 

In 2021 Dr Kottege led the CSIRO’s Data61 robotics team as they placed second in the ‘Robotic Olympics’ - the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Subterranean Challenge, a global robotics challenge to send field robots into unknown underground environments.

Australia is undoubtedly punching above its weight in robotic developments, but our robotics ecosystem is fragmented. Dr Kottege discussed some of the challenges of the adoption and commercialisation of cutting-edge technology in Australia in the light of current capabilities. And how the collaborative sub-systems of humans and robot interactions means we should anticipate a future of work that includes jobs we have not yet imagined.