Date:
7 September 2021
Author:
Phillipa Martin

AIIA’s Growing Globally Competitive Industries whitepaper

On 23 August 2021 the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) released its latest whitepaper, Growing Globally Competitive IndustriesExternal Link . The report makes a host of recommendations across nine key areas. Most of those recommendations involve government action — in fact the report urges the Federal Government to lead the digital transformation.

The nine areas are broken into four industry verticals (digital government is actually one of the verticals) and five ‘horizontals’ that represent specific opportunities or growth areas.

The four industry verticals

The four industry verticals are:

  • Agriculture
  • Health
  • Digital government
  • Manufacturing

Within each area the report highlights the current situation, areas of opportunity, and makes specific recommendations. Below, we’ve included some of the key recommendations for each industry. For full details, you can read the reportExternal Link (there’s a summary of the recommendations at the front of the whitepaper).

Agriculture

The report has several recommendations around AgTech, including setting up:

  • A Federal AgTech government agency/branch
  • A robotics commercialisation and acceleration fund
  • A pilot AgTech regional innovation centre

Health

Some of the whitepaper’s recommendations for the health sector are:

  • New digital delivery methods (driven by the government)
  • Cooperation on digital health between the states and Federal Government
  • A federated health platform
  • The use of emerging tech
  • A reengineered My Health Record

Digital government

Recommendations in the digital government vertical cover:

  • Citizen-centric approaches
  • An AI transformation agenda
  • Digital skills development in the public sector
  • Funding for digital service delivery

Manufacturing

For the final industry vertical, the whitepaper recommends:

  • Setting up a manufacturing technologies hub
  • The adoption of Industry 5.0 (people and robots/machines working together)

Other recommendations

There are a host of other recommendations that generally fall into the ‘horizontals’ of:

  • Engineering (digital twins) — Establishing a federal digital twin program and consolidated standards (for more on digital twins see our recent article on Victoria’s digital twin)
  • Quantum research — Investment in quantum research and the security landscape
  • Commercialisation — Supporting innovation from concept to the market
  • Cybersecurity — Ensuring critical technologies are protected
  • AI/Machine learning — Focusing on AI to drive transformation

Salsa Digital’s take

We’re strong believers of industry and government working together to produce better outcomes for our citizens. The recommendations in the AIIA’s Growing Globally Competitive Industries whitepaper provide a solid foundation for the government to review, and hopefully act on, to build a technology-driven Australia of the future. You may also like to read the AIIA’s press releaseExternal Link that ties the whitepaper back to the government’s 2030 targets to become a leading digital economy (for more information, read our blog on Australia's Digital Economy Strategy).