Big ideas for 2017
As we pause for a break to reflect on the year that’s been, it’s also a time to look to the future and imagine what it looks like.
We canvassed eight super-smart leaders from a broad spectrum, including avionics, mental health, energy, carbon markets, research and academia and asked them the same two questions:
- What’s one big opportunity for either your industry or the Asia-Pacific region in 2017?
- What’s one technology or idea that could disrupt your industry in 2017?
Their considered answers provide a veritable feast for thought. This feature is being published in two parts. Make sure to check out the other installment.
Innes Willox, Chief Executive, Australian Industry Group
Big opportunity
For Australia, there is an opportunity to be more globally competitive by strengthening our links into global supply chains and building upon existing high-value attributes such as skills, talent, technology and innovation. These are features of many globally competitive manufacturing economies.
Also, while the full implications of the Trump election are unknown, there will be opportunities for Australia in the US including from the expected infrastructure boom. Closer to home, there will be both challenges and opportunities in our immediate region, especially regarding relations with China, should the US turn more inward-looking under the Trump Presidency.
Disruptive technology or idea
Integrating digital technologies, connected devices and associated data to create real business value in manufacturing and beyond; some people talk about the Internet of Things, others about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The transformation will last well beyond 2017, but there’s immense value to tap into, as well as evolving cyber security threats to manage. Massive changes loom for our industrial structure—we need to help businesses and the community transition
Nolan Hunter, CEO, Kimberley Land Council
Big opportunity
Securing the long-term viability of Indigenous-owned savanna carbon projects and their biodiversity, social and cultural benefits is one of our main priorities heading into 2017.
One of the big opportunities the Kimberley Land Council (KLC) sees for achieving this goal is the establishment of a stronger voluntary market for Indigenous credits.
While the benefits of Indigenous carbon credits are generally well understood and demonstrable at the community level, this is not yet reflected in the price taken to market.
To address this issue the KLC, on behalf of Kimberley Aboriginal groups registering projects, is working with partner organisations to develop a method to quantify and price the social benefits of Indigenous carbon credits so that the true value can be recognised, and the long term viability can be strengthened.
The KLC is also working with Indigenous project participants and partner organisations across northern Australia to investigate an approach that quantifies the biodiversity benefits of ‘right way’ fire management on species and their habitat.
A mechanism that prices these co-benefits would assist to support the full suite of environmental services and social and cultural returns delivered by these projects.
Disruptive technology or idea
The Indigenous carbon market is heavily reliant on government policy and legislation. Any moves by government to weaken the policy position or repeal the Carbon Farming Initiative could have significant consequences for Indigenous-owned savanna carbon projects and the long-term viability of the industry.
With more than 115 countries ratifying the Paris Agreement and contributing nationally determined commitments, our greatest challenge as a nation is developing a strategy that ensures we deliver on our international commitments.
The 2017 review of the climate policy is an opportunity to consider how Australia’s regulatory policy can assist to drive demand for Indigenous carbon offsets that not only provide greenhouse gas reductions but also assist the nation to mitigate one of the impacts of climate change, increased wildfire.
Alison Andrew, CEO, Transpower (New Zealand)
Big opportunity
In May 2016, we launched our long-term outlook for the future: Transmission Tomorrow. It was designed to provide a realistic view of the future to ensure we continue to provide attractive, cost-effective services that meet our customers changing needs. New technologies are emerging, the electricity sector is evolving and society is changing around us.
Part of that long-term future involves preparing to meet the needs of New Zealand’s largest commercial centre, Auckland. For Auckland, there is no significant generation within 60 km of the city centre, meaning that almost all the power that Auckland uses each day comes from further south, in some cases, many hundreds of kilometres away in the South Island.
Our existing network in Auckland, which was built over 60 years across rural paddocks, has remained largely unchanged, and grown to meet the needs of a growing city, in a legacy network fashion—doing what we can with the existing infrastructure, with little ability to change what’s there due to the extensive residential housing that has now developed under, and around our transmission assets.
A large piece of work in 2017 will be preparing a future strategy for fulfilling Auckland’s economic and social needs and how we might meet these with best-value, future-proof and least-disruptive options.
Disruptive technology or idea
Our planning is on the long-term horizon and the type of technology that will really disrupt our business, such as extensive, widespread battery storage, is still some years away.
One of the biggest issues for us in 2017 will be the outcome of the Electricity Authority’s Transmission Pricing Methodology Review. This is a new way for determining how we recover our costs from customers. With a number of contentious changes being proposed, this topic touches all our industry and will require a number of changes to be implemented over 2017 and beyond.
Dominic Price, Head of R&D and work futurist, Atlassian
Big opportunity
For industry to embrace the opportunity that tech gives us to work across borders and time zones, and seamlessly collaborate. We can access talent all over the world, and connect agile teams through tech.
If you want to hire people from different regions, technology means you don’t have to be in the same office location anymore; however, you need to change your work practices, the way you’re working, to embrace the power that that technology gives you. And this is where I see the potential.
Disruptive technology or idea
Autonomation, AI and robotics, becoming accessible to mainstream business and finding new use cases. With advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation, we can see that there are a huge number of low-skilled and medium-skilled tasks that can now be automated. If I think about my role, there are probably 20% of things I’ve done this year that maybe next year or the year after I won’t have to do anymore because a computer or a robot or some sort of automation can do them for me.
I’m hopeful about that because productivity has had its lowest growth in the past 30 years, so despite the fact that we’ve got all these intelligent people and we’re in great times, and we have technology that we have never seen before in terms of interconnectedness of laptops and mobile phones and the internet, it has not yet given us a productivity lift.
My belief is that if we can start to automate more repetitive tasks we should be able to free up the creative resources to work on truly complex, gnarly problems, like curing cancer. If you’re a doctor, I don’t want you filling in paperwork; that should be automated. I want you using your medical genius to find a cure for cancer. I’m hopeful of seeing a shift where all that time can be invested, and then technology again becomes a valuable enabler—to collaborate, to share ideas, to spar, to experiment.