$800m Grants available for Manufacturing Transformation Projects

The $800 million federal government’s modern manufacturing initiative has opened , with grants of up to $200 million for large “transformation” projects to be accepted from next month – and the Prime Minister Scott Morrison to have the final say on approvals.

The  grants offer between $20 million and $200 million to cover up to a third of the costs of eligible large-scale projects.

The large manufacturing projects include collaboration

Projects must include business-to-business or business-to-research collaboration, according to the guidelines, which say collaborations can range from joint ventures and shared facilities to even “informal collaborative interactions such as networking and discussing and sharing ideas and information”.

Objectives :- 

•  to achieve scale, become more competitive, 
• to create new jobs and help to upskill the Australian manufacturing workforce.

The federal government will fund up to a third of successful projects, and other federal government funding sources and state programs can be used for up to 65 per cent, but at least 35 per cent must be from a non-government source.

Projects must be large scale – at least $60 million in eligible expenditure – and be completed by March 2024. It must also be part of the government’s six priority areas – 

space, 

• medical products,
•  resources and critical minerals, 
• food and beverage,
•  Defence, and 
• recycling and clean energy 

and show potential to expand or promote interstate or international trade.

Equal weighting will be given to applicants’ projects alignment with the priority sectors, benefit to Australia, capacity to deliver the project and access to finance. The assessment and negotiation process is expected to take up to 19 weeks.

Industry Innovation and Science Australia will review applications and advise the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, currently Christian Porter, who will recommend projects to the Prime Minister for a final decision.

The Prime Minister will also be able to impose specific conditions on grants, according to the guidelines.

Industry Innovation and Science Australia’s current board members are:

• Andrew Stevens (chair), non-executive director (various)
• Dr Cathy Foley, Australian Government chief scientist
• Prof Raoul Mortley, dean, Bond University
• Prof Elanor Huntington, dean engineering and computer science, ANU
• Patrick Houlihan, DuluxGroup chief executive
• Lauren Stafford, Woodside Energy innovation partnerships manager
• Scott Farrell, King & Wood Mallesons partner
• Dr Alex Grant, Myriota chief executive
• Sarah Nolet, AgThentic funder and chief executive
• Glenys Beauchamp PSM, non-executive director (various)
• David Fredericks PSM (ex officio) secretary, Dept of Industry

Grants will be accepted from August 11 and will applications will close September 9.

Buying a car - how important is the in-vehicle experience rather than the driving experience?

The autonomy, connectivity, electrification, and vehicle sharing which have seen over $100 billion  in disclosed external investments in the past 10 years 

The market is expected to grow to  $6.6 trillion in 2030 from $3.5 trillion today, and traditional technologies and business models are expected to decline from 98 percent of the market today to 50 percent in 2030. (With revenue coming from data collection !)

To remain competitive in an increasingly crowded and fast-moving space, incumbent auto companies will need to fundamentally reinvent both their product and technology offerings and their business models.

Driving experience is key - it’s all about the customer - and sound quality will play a major part - along with automatic searches; concierge services, including the ability to make reservations; and advanced payment for parking are all examples of promising use cases for consumer-direct monetization opportunities.

Infotainment, UI and cloud content will have a significant impact on user experience and therefore will emerge as the primary control points says McKinsey. They say that Issues to overcome will be  data ownership, use cases, cross-functional execution, pricing models, big data and advanced analytics, and data security.

In my view - the winners will be those who focus on customer experience! 

Inspired by 

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/an-executives-guide-to-software-development

The BHAG - align your strategy and tasks to your vision and mission

Great Insite from our foundation #bbgforum member 

CHAPTER FOUR: On the journey through my business book, Propelling Performance, we've reached a pivotal chapter - the exploration of the big, hairy audacious goal.

The mistake I see most businesses making is a failure to connect their vision to their business strategy. You want your vision to do more than inspire. You want it to empower. 

To do this you can’t simply tell your team the new vision and expect them to integrate it into their day to day work. You need to think long-term. You need to think big! To put your vision into a BHAG here are four approaches to try. Work on…

• Reaching a certain target
• Defeating a big enemy
• Emulating a role model
• Achieving an internal transformation.

Want to find out more? Pick up your copy of Propelling Performance here https://lnkd.in/gVCbCxw

The future of work is on us - are we ready for the #NexttechRevolution?

Craig Saphin  posted on linkedin today that there is a critical shortage of skilled staff - and we don’t even know what skills are needed in next 10 years, as technology is changing so fast! 

The future of work is on us - and there are significant opportunities! - are we ready for the #NexttechRevolution? 

As the Australian Tech Sector is coming into its own - There is a critical shortage is skilled roles in the tech sector today.

Case in points - 

• Culture Amps is planning to go from 400 to 700 staff this year 
• Deputy is hiring 40 people
• Wise tech -is  on the continual lookout for data scientists , machine learning professionals and front-end developers 
• Safety Culture has at any one time 30-40 roles

Yolanda Redrup reports in the AFR today that there are currently 30,000 software engineers in Australia - (where 9000 move jobs each year) , and the Industry will need an estimated 156,000 more digital technology workers by 2025. Deloitte Access Economics 2021 report says  that this skill gap could cost the economy up to $10 billion in growth over the next four years.

In the article , "Working Theory Angels” -Rachael Neumann predicts that 

“85% of the roles that will be in demand in a decade have not even been invented yet” 

What we need to do 

Learning  needs to be centred on mindsets and not based on vocational skills . Spending 5 years at  University learning a vocation in my view is history! 

Universities, Educational Institutions and Vocational Training should teach us to be outstanding thinkers and flexible executors – how to be creative, hypothesis-driven problem solvers, and how to build and work in diverse teams. 

Heather McGowan puts  it succinctly - we need to teach our workers to “learn how to learn” - to be well positioned to tackle problems that haven’t been seen before and be resilient to the inevitable “Moore’s Law” exponential rate of change .

Future Workers will need to become lifelong learners!

Welcome to the #NexttechRevolution  

#FOW

Hendrik Lourens - Getting the most out of New Technology

 

Clive Smallman and the Nexttech Transformation Forum

 

Our Chair, Bill Mclellan, introducing our Professor - Clive Smallman, who gave of his knowledge, that gave a number of firestarters for our thinktanks. 

The Thinktanks were unpacked by our members, Craig Sounes, Craig Saphin,  Michael Bartura and John Cooksey 

John Cooksey and the Nexttech Transformation Forum's Think Tank

 An amazing session of connecting, collaborating, contributing with an amazing Nexttech Community.

Rob Nankervis ,  Craig Saphin, Cassandra Parton and Hendrik Lourens  unpacking the think tank.