The top 20 Internet Companies - 9 in China!

The case for Entrepreneurial Immigrants

Fifty-six percent of top U.S. technology companies were founded by a first- or second-generation immigrant. 

We need to encourage  high-skilled immigration and visas for science graduates, or we risk these massive employers being founded elsewhere.

Funding for Incubators in Regional Australia

AIMEE CHANTHADAVONG

The federal government has appointed four ‘innovation facilitators’ across regional Australia to help regional incubators and startups through the Incubator Support program.

• Andrew Outhwaite, chair of StartupWA
• Brad Twynham, startup consultant
• Daniel Smith, former MassChallenge country manager
• Mark Phillips, business mentor

 The facilitators are charged with providing advice and helping people develop professional networks in Australia and overseas, and to forge local links with business, industry, universities, research institutions and government.

Jobs and Innovation Minister Michaelia Cash said the program aimed to drive regional development and growth.

“The additional support and advice these expert facilitators provide to incubators and startup hubs will help to foster successful start-ups in our regions,” she said.

Interestingly, however, while the specialists are responsible to focus on assistant incubators and startups in regional Australia, some are based in what many would consider as metro, leaving some sceptical about exactly how the facilitators will be to assist if they’re not on the ground.

David Masefield, co-founder of Startup Toowoomba, said the additional measure should improve the overall quality of startups and entrepreneurs in the regions.

“Overall, what the federal government is doing is a good idea. From my understanding, the quality of applications that were going through the Incubator Support process was not up to scratch,” he said.

“The government recognises that people want to be doing some good out in the regions, but were not hitting the target of what was really required in the applications, so by bringing on board some coordinators to assist the process I think that’s a good thing.

“For me, it becomes a bridge between the people who are going to make the decision in Canberra, who may not have direct contact with the people who are putting in the applications.”

The $23 million Incubator Support program is an initiative of the National Innovation and Science Agenda, and designed to give incubators and accelerators access to matched funding of up to $500,000 to improve their commercial prospects.

Since its launch in September 2016, the Incubator Support program has awarded almost $6.3 million to 15 new and existing Australian incubators. An additional $800,000 has been invested in expert secondments into 30 Australian incubators. 

JCA 2018 Living Dangerously

Great session last night at JCA’s living Dangerously event.

Phil Nosworthy was talking about the importance of Community and Connection on our journey into the future.

There were great keynotes by 4 awesome humans 

Thanks JCA for an awesome event! 

Max Stossel and Mark Bakers - Living Dangerously

Allanah Zitserman’s Keynote

Tamar Krebs’s Keynote 

Living Dangerously - into the future

Great keynotes by Max Stossel and Mark Baker 

We are a work in progress - says Mark Baker.

We survived the holocast - and we are now in the wilderness - creating history of humankind

• performing our rituals and expanding on them - enriching and expanding the narrative for our future generations.
• Sharing the stories of our forefathers 

As much of 40pc if daily behaviours are habitual. 

Are we repeating things that grow our communities and grow ourselves or making it harder for people to follow ? 

How long will the human exist in its current form? 

We are not the customer - we are actually the product living in the Matrix. We are being “farmed for our attention” says Max Stossel

We can be anywhere at anytime - touching and feeling and being immersed in Virtual Reality experiences 

- with the objective of “being sold to” by those that have the power to influence.

Algorithms are playing chess with our minds  to keep us  liking and scrolling and swiping! 

Facebook remembers everything - Facebook channels you  to people that you like 

Your views will be cemented by clever arguments making it impossible to empathise with others - you are being taught to hate. There is data to justify everything.

The algorithm hides condemning evidence that’s not on our side with secrets and with lies. In a world of secrets and lies and hidden agendas - the truth matters most when it is not on your side 

Living Dangerously with Allanah Zitserman

I am not married - I have a child - I live with an amazing Greek Human - I am still Jewish - just a bit different just a bit dangerous!

I go to the fringe. - snap back to the middle of my comfort zone .... stretch the boundaries  - live dangerously - I am on a mission - on a journey - where? It’s still a work in progress.

About Community 

Dangerous ideas requires huge amounts of vulnerability. 

A community needs to provide the latitude and support for people to pursue their dreams , make those failures and drive those edges further! 

Disruption and innovation is key for a community to grow.

The interesting thing for me is that as I pull back from the community - the more the community accepts me - the more that it draws me back.

Sydney is difficult - and can be very confronting and lonely - the power of its people is directly relational to the power of its connected community.

About Allanah Zitserman 

Allanah Zitserman born to Russian refugees is a famous playright, film producer and storyteller

Russian Doll was her first . It went on to earn her an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Recently she has started production on the feature film, Ladies in Black,directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy)

Living Dangerously - redefining what a Rabbis Wife can do

Being a Rebbetzin (Rabbi’s Wife), having an open home, looking after 4 amazing children  and being a role model to the community 

But 

Also being a CEO - with a big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) of helping people die with dignity and helping people live with dementia - Focussing  on their abilities and celebrating their differences 

Living Dangerously - Redefining what a rebbetzin can do

Tamar was surprised when a woman said - “what dreams did you have before you were a rabbis wife!”

“I have the same dreams now that I had before I was married - I now have a husband,  community and friends that can support and help me achieve those dreams!

The woman was confused - but that’s ok because Tamar likes confused people! 

On Raising Capital

You think Colonel Sanders had it bad looking to raise money for Kentucky fried chicken!!!

Try looking for money for a venture being - 

1. A Female 
2. Young
3. And a Rabbis wife 

But

A love for innovation and disruption in her field and an unswerving mission to disrupt her field and allow people  with dementia to live and die with dignity.

The trifecta! After 63 rejections and 100s of meetings - she raised the seed money to build our first home - and now have 13 homes around NSW - helping over 100 souls with dementia along their journey with dignity, support and unconditional love. 

Some key takeouts :- 

Inclusion for diversity and difference

Disruption where we dare to be different 

Pushing  the boundaries of opportunity

We need to celebrate our differences

Different Genders

Different Religions

Different Cultures 

We need to find the commonality. 

Where can we be connected and create community? 

The world looks to us how we do community and tribe - we need to be an example to the rest of the world  - we need to be at the forefront of innovation, be different , but with rock solid values with 1 underlying theme -

“Treat others the way you would like to be treated”

The Difference Between a Cryptocurrency and a Token

The Bob Pritchard Column 

A cryptocurrency coin refers to cryptocurrency that has it own blockchain and works independently of other platform while token refers to cryptocurrency that operates and based its existence on another platform, for instance Ethereum. E.g. Tron, Vechain and Bytom. Here’s a few specific differences that you might find useful.

 

1.         Structure
Coins are essentially digital financial assets. They are currencies in the real sense of the word because they are capable of being exchanged and used for trading. Tokens are also digital financial assets. But rather than being the actual assets in themselves like the coins, token is a representation of the actual financial assets, reflecting value upon entering the blockchain; they are separate entries on the blockchain and facilitate largely the creation of several other applications that are decentralized.

2.         Infrastructure
While the Coins use a unique and independent blockchain for each of their variety, the Tokens can have several entries into the same blockchain. In essence, each Coin has its blockchain completely independent of any and all other Coins. This is not the same with the Tokens. There are instances where several Tokens are built upon and entered into the same blockchain.

3.         Creation
In creating Coins, there has to be a complete modification of the protocol from scratch to accommodate the unique features of each coin. This is not so with tokens. Creating tokens is much easier. To create new tokens, one does not have to create new blockchains from scratch or begin to modify the codes that exist on the particular protocol. All of the tokens, being but representations of digital assets, use the same codes and protocol upon entry of their values on the blockchain. One can create token with merely a few negligible modifications to the protocol, and this is only in very few circumstances.

4.         Ease and difficulty of creation
Due to the need to have a separate set of codes and particular protocols, be they new or modified, in the creation of cryptocurrency Coins, the level of difficulty involved is comparatively higher. With the easily adaptable nature of Token codes and protocols, and the ability to have each new Token entered on the blockchain using the same standard protocol/template, creating tokens is far more easy and convenient in general.

5.         Platform for Operation
Coins by their nature and mode of creation are designed to operate by themselves independently. Coins share this unique feature with the everyday currency bills we find in our society. The ability to use the cryptocurrency Coins to trade as well as a unit of measure and exchange of financial assets is what makes it unique and gives it satisfaction of the appellation of ‘cryptocurrency.’ The Tokens, on the other hand, are not capable of being operated in isolation. They are not in themselves direct financial assets. They are rather a representation of digital financial assets as discussed. Thus, the tokens have to be based upon another platform, such as Omni and Ethereum, for them to exist and operate. They are not capable of direct entry on the blockchain.

 

The Future of Work - Towards 2030

This  article is based on a paper by Lee Rainie in 2017 as part of the Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils

 Alvin Toffler predicted a future in his 1970 bestseller Future Shock that looks much like today’s reality.

Alvin Toffler's 1970 bestseller Future Shock anticipated the rise of the internet           

He anticipated 

• the rise of the internet, 
• the sharing economy, 
• companies built on “adhocracy” rather than centralized bureaucracy, 
• the broader social confusions and concerns about technology.
•  how the evolving relationship between people and technology would shape how societies and economies develop. 

So where will we be in 2030?

• Jobs - what will they look like? 
• How will we re educate ourselves?
• What will education look like?
• How will we earn a living?
• Will we need to earn a living?
• How will we communicate?
• Will everything we do be inaliebly linked to the internet?
• Privacy? Will it exist?
• So many other questions - what questions do you have?

Can we master greater connectivity

Many are convinced that the internet will be everywhere - or nearly everywhere - in the next generation. It will be "on" most things and built into many objects and environments.
Experts claim that the internet will fade into the background, becoming like electricity - less visible but deeply embedded in human endeavors.
Even those without high levels of literacy will interact with digital material and apps using their voice, igniting an unprecedented expansion of knowledge and learning.
The build of AI - will there be mistakes along the way? Who will build it? Will it incorporate values that we can be proud of?
This explosion of connectivity has bought and will continue to bring infinite new possibilities, but also economic and social vulnerabilities.

The level of coordination and coding required to stitch the Internet of Things together is orders of magnitude more complicated than any historical endeavour yet.

It is likely that things will break and no one will know how to fix them.

Bad actors will be able to achieve societal disruptions at scale and from afar.

Consequently, we are faced with some hard, costly choices. 

• How much redundancy should these complex systems have?
•  How will they be defended and by whom? 
• How is liability redefined, as objects are networked across a global grid and attacks can metastasize quickly? 
• Will we create more meaningful work?
• Will AI , IOT and machine learning Be good for humans? Will it create or destroy jobs? Will more valuable jobs replace those supplanted by technology. 

• How are we as humans going to react to the technology revolution? 
• What jobs will replace those that will be done by machines. 
• How will education and skills-training adapt?

Colleges, community colleges and trade schools - models are being disrupted - Teaching is now blended  through online video or hybrid courses which provide both online and classroom experiences.

Artificial intelligence systems will assess student performance and the sufficiency of the course.

Employees are also self-training with online material.

What will always be needed is collaboration and human connection.

Heather McGowan and Chris Shipley points out that the  best education programmes will be those teaching how to be a lifelong learner, and that alternative credential systems will arise to assess the new skills people acquire.


So, what specific human talents will be unable to be duplicated by machines and automation for some time?

They say

• social and emotional intelligence, 
• creativity, 
• collaborative activity,
• abstract and systems thinking, 
• complex communication skills, and
• the ability to thrive in diverse environments.
• What are schools and universities need to doing to re-orient to emphasise these non-technical skills?

It’s all about Trust!!

• Trust is about reliability, capability and intimacy 
• Trust is not about wiifm 
• Trust is key to the development of a sustainable future 
• Trust is a social, economic and political binding agent. is the glue for economic development and social cohesion. 
• Trust is the lifeblood of friendship and care-giving. 

When trust is absent, all kinds of societal woes unfold, including violence, chaos and paralysing risk-aversion.

With the proliferation of internet and mass collaboration - has trust been degraded?
Preferences for convenience, comfort, and information have made people vulnerable to the ways organisations  can identify, target and manipulate them

• Fake news
• Using other people’s info
• Spam
• Preying on needs from data analytics 
• Data theft
• Unlawful data use 
• How much can social and organizational innovation alleviate new problems?
• There are new ways of doing things

Old corporate structures are old

Some primary aspects of collective action and power are already changing as social networks become a societal force.

These networks are used for both knowledge-sharing and mobilizing others to action.

There are new ways for people to collaborate to solve problems - using tools that can track measure and reward activity

BBG is a case in point (www.bbg.business)

New laws and court battles are inevitable and are likely to address questions such as: 

• Who owns what information?
• Who can use and profit from information? 
• When something goes wrong with an information-processing system (say, a self-driving car propels itself off a bridge), who is responsible? 
• Where is the right place to draw the line between data capture - or surveillance - and privacy? 
• What kinds of personal information can be legitimately considered when assessing someone’s employment, creditworthiness or insurance status? 
• Who oversees the algorithms that decide what happens in society? 
• There is a long road ahead to 2030. There is a lot of opportunity to make the uncertain more certain. 

We look forward to being a player in this exciting time

Is having a disability not cool? Should that human not have a coolability?

“a report released today by the charity Scope and the National Centre for Social Research of the shows that 75% of 4,000 respondents questioned think that disabled people need care for some or most of the time.” From an article about Kelman Mallick 

My view - with the influence of Chally and i4j 

But is that not cool? Automation will take the jobs that can be automated - and the jobs that are needed are those that will care for our fellow human! 

the barriers to getting more disabled people into jobs 

“lie not with the person, but the world around them that prevents them from working”

By being disabled they are working - they are providing a vehicle for others to add value to society by looking after them. 

Giving people who would otherwise be out of a job as a result of automation - to have a purpose.... to help their fellow man.

In fact - someone with a so called disability - in fact has a coolability! These are the humans that will give others a reason for being... to help their fellow man and women !

What do you think?

Turning Vegetables into Delicious Tasting Sirloins and Fillets

Are you a veggie or vegan?

Have  you been craving a good old juicy steak?

If so read on.... your prayers may have been answered.

Vivera, a Netherlands based company - seems to have nailed the production of a Vegan Steak - It is a secret recipe -  the Coca Cola Of Vegetables!

"It's a combination of the right ingredients and the right processing," says inventor Gert Jan Gombert.

"The ingredients are on the packaging, the processing secrets we keep to ourselves."

The list of ingredients includes soy and wheat proteins, coconut oil, barley extract and wheat starch, with Vivera using fillet and sirloin steaks as a guideline for the structure and taste of their steaks.

How was it created? 

At Vivera, employees are  given one day a week to work on their own ideas. 

One day Gombert and his colleague Richard Jansen (head of sales) were given a prototype of the steak to taste and spent the next 4 years perfecting the design,  creation and manufacture in bulk of the ultimate Vegetable Steak .... that tastes, smells and looks like the real deal!

The team had two challenges They had to overcome 

• How do we create the taste, texture, flavour and juiciness of a steak"  
• How can we get this from the kitchen to the machines. Large-scale production is not always as simple as just multiplying the quantity of ingredients."

The Product is being distributed through 400 Tesca stores in the UK and it is expected to sell millions of Steaks in 2018!

Warehouse managed by Robotics

This warehouse in Andover UK has arrived in the future.

It is run by battery operated robots that move along a grid, managed by a traffic control system.

These robots  pick and pack 65,000 orders per week.

Jobs vs Machines in the Digital age

A while back, we conducted 50,000 surveys of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) adoption and use by small to medium businesses and not for profits. We mapped 19 industry sectors and 480 business categories in depth, and then created workshops to help organisations understand which technologies would be useful and why.

The results provided a gateway for helping organisations better understand what ICT could do for them. How it could help improve communication, increase productivity, insight, information sharing and collaboration – all the things we now take for granted.

We surveyed which products and services were being used. We queried how these were “rated” by users, and what sources of help, information and advice on technology, respondents relied on. 

Which was very interesting. Results were not necessarily those you might expect. 

For instance, government sources of help, information and advice rated far lower than all other sources in every survey we conducted. By a huge margin.

And the digital revolution rolls on. Ever increasing connection, collaboration and integration of technology continue to change the landscape. Providing many opportunities beyond just the use of ICT in individual businesses. 

And we now see that a relatively few large multinationals have grown to dominate and leverage this ever-connecting digital landscape in ways that many did not expect. 

Opportunity for many has now morphed into threat for many. And Cambridge Analytica is just one example of what can happen when data is collected, aggregated and re-identified for vested interest. There are many others.

And it is unclear whether this can be reversed.

In reaction to this changing landscape, we reviewed our database and mapped for each industry sector and each business category, a picture of how twenty-three new technologies are now threatening Australian organisations.
Challenging jobs, businesses and even whole industry sectors and regions.

We looked at everything from Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3D printing, Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, Blockchain, Cloud services, BIM, GPS, 5G, Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity, Drones, Digital Identity, IP protection, Mobility, Nanotechnology, Robots, Solar and Battery Storage, Virtual Reality, Amazon, airbnb, Freelancer, Google, Uber etc, not forgetting climate change and “fake news”, to define just how new technologies are collectively changing the work environment for better and for worse.

It is an interesting map and only makes real sense at the individual business category level, because businesses within an industry sector do many different things, and technology affects each business category differently, sometimes productively and sometimes negatively.

At the business category level, the impacts become personal. It is real people walking out the door replaced by technologies of all kinds. Software is implemented, efficiencies gained and restructuring does the rest. Roles are redefined and full time jobs are moved to contract, part time, freelance and even outsourced overseas.

We have all witnessed these changes. However, when you do the sums and add up the number of employees impacted by these changes over a relatively short time frame, the result is worrying.

We are told that as a result of digital disruption roughly half of existing jobs will be impacted in some way over the next twenty years. Not everybody agrees with the figures, but these predictions align with our research pretty well. 

We can see, by matching each business category against all the potential impacts that roughly 6 million jobs in Australia are under threat, with 2.5 million over the next 5 years. Which is concerning when you realise than just over 12 million Australians currently have jobs and now half of those are under threat.

And according to Roy Morgan latest figures for May 2018, 1,196,000 Australians are now unemployed, and another 1,349,000 are now underemployed and looking for more work. Which is nearly 20% of the workforce.

And in most cases the job threat from digital disruption represents replacement not displacement. A robot or software product or both will replace the job completely, not just displace or push workers into some other job opportunity. Because the impacts are happening across every industry sector, and in every country pretty much at the same time.

The change suits some people, but not everybody has skill sets (brain skills, eye skills, hand skills, no skills) that can be easily translated and transferred to new job opportunities. Especially when there are even fewer new jobs available that AI, blockchain or robots can’t replace.

New jobs are being created, but these jobs are not for everybody and favour brain skills and eye skills = STEAM.
And you can’t move workers from one job activity into another job activity if workers are being pushed out of that area at the same time.

If we don’t prepare for this (and we are still only just talking about this, not actually doing anything), we are in for a big shock. 

In this new digital version of workplace musical chairs, half the chairs are being removed simultaneously. Not just here, but across the world. With additional disruptive pressure coming from climate change, war, terrorism, refugee movement and political game playing of all kinds.
Currently, two of the biggest costs to Australian society (and treasurers) are health care and prisons. 

People without jobs and meaning in society can (and do) become depressed, ill and a burden on health services (which are already stretched to the limit). 

People without jobs and meaning in society can (and do) also become angry, hungry and desperate. And a significant number of frustrated individuals without jobs and no hope of finding a job, will react and respond in ways that lead to incarceration. Meaning more people in prisons.

Which we cannot afford, not just because of the dollar cost, but because of the impacts to families, children, communities and regions as well as the bottom line.

It all joins up.

At a time like this, cutting the tax rate for the richest in society is not a wise move. It will just confirm what most people already believe anyway. That our politicians have been highjacked by lobbyists, money and vested interests. 
That the Australian “fair go” has disappeared. 

 “Fair gone”. And we let it go.

We need to support the makers in our country not the takers – support agriculture, creative industries, ICT, manufacturing, medical and health, mining services, smart trades and tourism. Give the tax cuts to productive industries – the “makers”, not banks – the “takers”.

But the digital revolution is far bigger than one budget. And will have a much bigger impact on what happens next.
But we are not completely helpless, regardless of government indecision. And it is not all bad news. If we respond in time then many of the negative impacts of digital disruption can be managed or slowed giving us time to think and act. 

Ignore the digital threat or move too slowly, as we are doing at the moment, and the enemy will be at the gate before we are ready.

Governments prevaricate. It is their nature. The next election always takes precedent over action. Indeed the Murdoch press is in election mode already.

And few people can see the big picture. Those in the technology industry that do speak publicly with warnings about digital job destruction – Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking among others – are not really understood. They can see it from the inside. We just see symptoms occasionally.

“Did you hear, Bill and Mary have been made redundant?”
And not all governments prevaricate. The Chinese government’s plan is to catch up with the USA on AI technology and applications by 2020 (just two years) and become a global AI innovation hub by 2030. 

And the Chinese don’t just talk about these things. They do them. 

Because they can. 

While our governments at all levels, just talk, muddle and fuddle and worry about their seats in parliament or council. They don’t worry about our seats in the new game of workplace musical chairs.

We live in a comfortable country, surrounded by blue sea and sky, with the sun nearly always shining on this huge, well resourced island a long way from everywhere.

But we are not the only ones who make decisions about what happens here in a digitally, interconnected world. Decisions affecting us are made in China, the EU, USA, UK, Japan, India and Korea every day.

So we need to wake up to just how fast the world around us is changing.

And take action.

We need to do three things. 

One. We all need to take time to really understand what is happening. Ask Google. Talk to a systems integrator. Then share, educate and inform others. 

Currently, digital disruption is viewed a bit like climate change. The impacts are off somewhere in the future. Which is correct. 

But that future is closer than you might think.

In the next three to five years we will see the first 1.5 million Australian jobs under threat, in financial services, retail, wholesale, rental and real estate, administration and support. As well as some categories in professional services and health.

And in the next ten to fifteen years, another 4.5 million jobs will be threatened as AI really takes hold. 

Which for our children and grandchildren in Australian schools is going to be a challenge.

As a student, “what should I study in the short term and longer term?” And “how will the work environment I expect to enter change?”

Two simple questions. But highly relevant to students in schools, higher education and training. And to their parents.
These questions are also important to the rest of us. Because the technologies that affect students, will also affect our jobs and workplaces. With redundancies, contracts, offshoring, part time and no time.

So. Job one. 

Understand what’s happening. Then help educate and inform.
We should all do that.

Job two. 
Leverage the positive impacts and opportunities presented by digital technology, wherever we can. We have lots of allies in the systems integrators, web services and voice services across our nation. They deal with these disruptive issues every day.

But not everybody has the skills to be a systems integrator or work in the ICT industry. And the whole sector only employs a few hundred thousand people anyway.

We need to focus a lot more energy on a wider spectrum of Australian productive industries to diversify and spread risk in a country far too reliant on dirt, meat and wheat, and invest more of our money, brains and creativity into a broad suite of value-added products and services. Then offer them to the world.

We have to move beyond commodity “cargo cult” thinking. We are very fortunate to have a productive mining sector and a farming sector, but we need to broaden our vision for the future.

Job three. 
Mitigate the risks and the threats (slow them down) where we can’t change them.

Example. News Ltd and Fairfax support and protect the real estate industry from threat, because they own Realestate.com and Domain.com, both of which rely on the real estate industry for providing and uploading content into their sites. 
So it is in the interests of both publishers to “talk up” property investment and house prices, which they do, and also try to protect real estate agents from the impacts of alternatives, which they also did.

But this is rearguard action. It will only slow change down, not prevent it. And change will come, and is coming now from blockchain and AI. And real estate agents will ultimately be just a subject page in history books and Wikipedia.

But not quite yet.

Because change involves being “ready, willing and able”. 
And technology requires adoption and use. There is a human element involved. 

And choices.

So even though technology is now able to replace everything real estate agents do, News Ltd and Fairfax are not ready or willing to support the change. And real estate agents don’t want it either.

So vested interests can slow things down for a long time. Just think how much time the tobacco industry bought through political lobbying, strategic blocking action and denial – 60 years.

Threatened industries can be protected for a while. But only to offer time to migrate, translate, pivot and evolve into something else. Or be disintermediated.

Because the new threats are coming from everywhere and the investment in new technologies is enormous.
Each business category has its own story. And each category is at different stages of readiness, willingness and ability.
And each category has a different set of vested interests in play. And these factors can offer regions, sectors and business categories time to move to safe ground. We need to leverage this fact, with eyes wide open. Strategically.
Yes, jobs will disappear. Lots of them. 

But by using a little wisdom and understanding, we can help organisations and individuals to migrate, train, learn new skills, avoid the categories under most threat and generally turn threat into opportunity whenever possible. It won’t always be easy and it won’t always be possible.
But we have to face up to the facts. Not ignore them.
For our part, on a more positive note, we have already created a showcase of Australia’s best of breed manufacturers and producers for the world to see. A shop window of what we do best – produce, manufacture and create.

https://theredtoolbox.org/index.php/showcase-fp
If you know of any additional manufacturer, producer or service that should be included, let us know. And we will add them.

We have also begun to directly “build bridges” between Australian businesses and businesses in other countries, starting with India, partnering with the Australia India Business Council so that Australian businesses and Indian businesses can talk and engage. To increase export.
https://theredtoolbox.org/index.php/groups-3

We will add other countries into that “bridge building” framework in due course.

And last, but not least, we are now working on a new project based on the 50,000 surveys I spoke about – the ED Toolbox, designed to help students and parents better consider and understand the impacts of twenty three disruptive technologies on 400 business categories across 19 industry sectors, to grasp how those business categories will be affected and when. And what that might mean to work and jobs.

Because students and parents need help in understanding that the world of tomorrow is not the world of today or yesterday. And tomorrow is coming quicker than expected and disrupting the world of work and jobs, not just here but everywhere.

So as we now begin to engage with teachers, schools, consultants, training organisations and others on this project, we are inviting help and input.

First stage: Ed Toolbox for Students and Parents
This is a relatively simple tool that allows a student and parents to consider the impact of twenty-three disruptive technologies on 400 business categories across 19 industry sectors.
The tool should help in considering and planning study and work options for the future.

Second Stage: Ed Toolbox for Schools
This will be an extended version of the ED Toolbox, incorporating a social platform to allow discussion between students, parents and teachers, plus offering the potential to connect to and engage with a range of businesses already responding to the impacts of digital change in their workplaces.

Real world case studies.

We will also include a much wider group of interested parties in the development discussion, and in the solution. 
So we are meeting with schoolteachers and principals to get input and advice. Anybody with productive ideas on the project can sign up to the RED Toolbox for free and join the discussion.

Disruptive change is now a fact of life. But it is time to collaborate, push back and manage digital disruption to our advantage. Not just roll over and let it happen.

Ivan - join our BBG Innovation forum to collaborate, learn and grow - and explore solutions and plan for jobs for the future

Www.bbg.business

How Silicon Valley has become a $3 trillion asset - It all starts from a story!

How did Silicon Valley become a $3 trillion area? 

It all starts with a story - and this narrative starts with Mr and Mrs Leland Stanford 

Early 19th century was farmland 

1885 - Mr and Mrs Leiland Stanford set up Stanford University in memory of their son who died at Harvard. There is a great narrative how they arrived at the Harvard Presidents office in threadbare clothes- and was ignored by the secretary - eventually after a few hours - was “granted an audience” - and offered to erect a memorial in the form of a building . The president , looking at their clothes said - “it’s very expensive you know .... Harvard’s buildings cost $7m - at which Mrs Stanford whispered to her husband “is that all that is needed to set up a University? - and they moved to Palo Alto and set up Stanford!

1930s navy built an aerospace hub - scientists and smart people moved to area 

1939 HP founded there - got government contract making radar and artillery 

1940s - at Bell labs - William Shockley co-invented the transistor. Transistor became computer processor

1956 - Shockley set up silicon labs - employed grads from Stanford 

1958 - 8 employees left to create Fairchild semiconductors - became known as the “traitorous 8” -made computer components for Apollo programme 

1960s - Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce 2 of the 8 founded intel on a one page business plan 

Late 60s - 2 other of the 8 founded Kleiner Perkins 

1969 - government research project with Vint Cerf - that went on to become the internet 

1970 - Xerox set up in Palo Alto

1971 - Don Hoefler set up Silicon Valley Times - and the name Stuck!

Lots of stuff around Stanford research

1980s - Atari, Apple and Oracle founded

1990s - Ebay, yahoo ., Paypal and google

2000 - 2002 - dot com crash - I remember seeing empty building after enoty building!

2003 - 2018  - Facebook , Uber , Twitter and Tesla 

2018 - 2030 - ????

2030 - 2050 - ????

The future of work - towards 2030

This  article is based on a paper by Lee Rainie in 2017 as part of the Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils

 Alvin Toffler predicted a future in his 1970 bestseller Future Shock that looks much like today’s reality.

He anticipated 

• the rise of the internet, 
• the sharing economy, 
• companies built on “adhocracy” rather than centralized bureaucracy, 
• the broader social confusions and concerns about technology.
•  how the evolving relationship between people and technology would shape how societies and economies develop. 

So where will we be in 2030?

•  Jobs - what will they look like? 
• How will we re educate ourselves?
• What will education look like?
• How will we earn a living?
• Will we need to earn a living?
• How will we communicate?
• Will everything we do be inaliebly linked to the internet?
• Privacy? Will it exist?

So many other questions - what questions do you have?

Can we master greater connectivity

Many are convinced that the internet will be everywhere - or nearly everywhere - in the next generation. It will be "on" most things and built into many objects and environments. 

Experts claim that the internet will fade into the background, becoming like electricity - less visible but deeply embedded in human endeavors. 

Even those without high levels of literacy will interact with digital material and apps using their voice, igniting an unprecedented expansion of knowledge and learning.

The build of AI - will there be mistakes along the way? Who will build it? Will it incorporate values that we can be proud of? 

This explosion of connectivity has bought and will continue to bring infinite new possibilities, but also economic and social vulnerabilities. 

The level of coordination and coding required to stitch the Internet of Things together is orders of magnitude more complicated than any historical endeavour yet. 

It is likely that things will break and no one will know how to fix them. 

Bad actors will be able to achieve societal disruptions at scale and from afar.

 Consequently, we are faced with some hard, costly choices. 

• How much redundancy should these complex systems have?
•  How will they be defended and by whom? 
• How is liability redefined, as objects are networked across a global grid and attacks can metastasize quickly? 

Will we create more meaningful work?

Will AI , IOT and machine learning Be good for humans? Will it create or destroy jobs? Will more valuable jobs replace those supplanted by technology. 

How are we as humans going to react to the technology revolution? 

What jobs will replace those that will be done by machines. 

How will education and skills-training adapt?

Colleges, community colleges and trade schools - models are being disrupted - Teaching is now blended  through online video or hybrid courses which provide both online and classroom experiences. 
Artificial intelligence systems will assess student performance and the sufficiency of the course. 
Employees are also self-training with online material.

What will always be needed is collaboration and human connection.

Heather McGowan and Chris Shipley points out that the  best education programmes will be those teaching how to be a lifelong learner, and that alternative credential systems will arise to assess the new skills people acquire. 

So, what specific human talents will be unable to be duplicated by machines and automation for some time? 

They say 

• social and emotional intelligence, 
• creativity, 
• collaborative activity,
• abstract and systems thinking, 
• complex communication skills, and
• the ability to thrive in diverse environments.

What are schools and universities need to doing to re-orient to emphasise these non-technical skills?

It’s all about Trust!!

• Trust is about reliability, capability and intimacy 
• Trust is not about wiifm 
• Trust is key to the development of a sustainable future 
• Trust is a social, economic and political binding agent. is the glue for economic development and social cohesion. 
• Trust is the lifeblood of friendship and care-giving. 

When trust is absent, all kinds of societal woes unfold, including violence, chaos and paralysing risk-aversion. 

With the proliferation of internet and mass collaboration - has trust been degraded? 

Preferences for convenience, comfort, and information have made people vulnerable to the ways organisations  can identify, target and manipulate them

• Fake news
• Using other people’s info
• Spam
• Preying on needs from data analytics 
• Data theft
• Unlawful data use 

How much can social and organizational innovation alleviate new problems?

There are new ways of doing things

Old corporate structures are old

New ways of collaborating - using tools that can track measure and reward activity 

Some primary aspects of collective action and power are already changing as social networks become a societal force. 
These networks are used for both knowledge-sharing and mobilizing others to action. 
There are new ways for people to collaborate to solve problems. 

BBG is a case in point (www.bbg.business)

New laws and court battles are inevitable and are likely to address questions such as: 

• Who owns what information?
• Who can use and profit from information? 
• When something goes wrong with an information-processing system (say, a self-driving car propels itself off a bridge), who is responsible? 
• Where is the right place to draw the line between data capture - or surveillance - and privacy? 
• What kinds of personal information can be legitimately considered when assessing someone’s employment, creditworthiness or insurance status? 
• Who oversees the algorithms that decide what happens in society? 

There is a long road ahead to 2030. There is a lot of opportunity to make the uncertain more certain. 
We look forward to being a player in this exciting time