With technology playing a more important role for businesses and societies all over the world, it’s fair to say the Turnbull government came at the right time for Australia. With a genuine interest in not only technology but in science too, this is important for the future of the country. However, it also raises some questions;

• Which technologies will benefit society and our economy most?
• How can we position Australia for success?
• Should we place an emphasis on one over the other?

Fortunately, questions like this led to the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) report. Launched by Professor Ian Chubb while visiting Canberra’s Australian Academy of Science, we now have some important answers.

A Study for the Future, Patterns from the Past

Named ‘Technology and Australia’s Future’, the report took three years to compile and all four learned academies offered assistance along the way. While these findings will prove to be important for Australia’s future, there’s also a deeper story here and it was described as a ‘narrative for Australia’ by Robin Batterham, a former Chief Scientist.

As a rich story full of twists and turns, there’s an important message to be taken from the narrative; that we all depend on the past and learn lessons this way. However, past lessons must still be learned again by new generations. Across the report, the points of interest would be better described as ‘reminders’ than ‘findings’.

Although technology has expanded exponentially in recent years, we mustn’t forget that it has been a key economic driver since the 1950s. With this in mind, Australia needs to shoot for the moon with technology rather than continually cutting costs if it wants economic growth.

Furthermore, many of the same concerns arose including job losses. As technology continues on this path of progression, there’s a concern that the human race will lose the ability to work and that robots will take over. Unfortunately, these concerns aren’t based on history. In fact, they aren’t based on fact or logic either.

As part of the recurring narrative, the report also highlighted the reluctance of society to take advantage of new technologies. Known as ‘technological inertia’, the introduction of new technologies is delayed despite society benefitting overall when they eventually are introduced. If we’re to really learn lessons from the past, responses to new technologies need to be free from friction.

The Uncertainty Factor

As we all know, technology has an air of unpredictability and the report highlighted the resistance we have to this characteristic. There are certain predictable aspects including Gordon Moore’s law, but this law didn’t prove useful with some dramatic changes we’ve seen in recent years (such as Uber!).

Whether we like it or not, unpredictability is simply a part of technology. Over the years, it’s been through several phases of evolution and it has many similarities to biology because technologies mutate and combine in different ways. Which technologies survive? Well, this depends on the environment…which is also unpredictable in nature.

However, we believe that this evolutionary and almost chaotic characteristic should be welcomed rather than despised. In the report, there are some important findings on how we can learn to seize these opportunities rather than avoiding them.

If we look at the world of technology, we actually find some of our greatest achievements as a species. Yet, when you see lists of ‘creative industries’, technology is nowhere to be seen. Why not include technology in this list and give our children a chance to get excited over the industry? Looking to other countries for inspiration, there could be opportunities to embrace the ‘maker movement’. Meanwhile, the STEM curriculum that has centered around knowledge for so long can be adjusted to account for creativity too. In the years ahead, such changes could have a significant impact on Australia.

It’s important to remember that new technologies WILL fail; the important thing is to learn from these failures and then use the acquired knowledge to build more reliable solutions. For users and adopters of technologies, this key characteristic of engineers and scientists should be communicated.

Rather than giving up at the first hurdle, a simple change of mindset could lead to more experimentation. This has its challenges, but the report shows that there are role models that can allow it to happen. Once we promote agility and lose this innate fear of failure, the rest will follow.

A Bright Future Ahead?

Shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Malcom Turnbull showed signs of interest for the report and was sympathetic to the findings. In an interview, he even stated that the disruption, change, and volatility should be seen as ‘our friend’. However, he also noted that we need to be ‘smart enough to take advantage of it’.

There’s no doubt about it, new technologies hold rich opportunities; like the pot at the end of a rainbow. What does a rainbow need in order to manifest? Rain. If we can endure the rain and adopt this adjusted mindset, Australia’s narrative could have the positive ending we all desire!