Around this time of year, almost all of the startup founders who pitch me or ask for advice will start saying, “…and we’re [hoping/planning/must be ready to] launch by the end of the year. Here’s the thing: “end of the year” is an artefact of the calendar system we use in the West, unchanged since… Read more »
Treasurer Jim Chalmers told reporters on Tuesday his first budget was “the beginning of something new and responsible”. The October 2022-23 budget under Labor is certainly a different beast from the one handed down by the Coalition just before the federal election. It is not just the numbers that have changed, the approach is different… Read more »
How would an artificial intelligence (AI) decide what to do? One common approach in AI research is called “reinforcement learning”. Reinforcement learning gives the software a “reward” defined in some way, and lets the software figure out how to maximise the reward. This approach has produced some excellent results, such as building software agents that… Read more »
Medibank has reported a “distressing development” regarding its unfolding cyber incident, as “a series of additional files” received from a criminal party have been found to include detailed Medibank customer data. The health insurance provider first reported “unusual activity” on its network on 13 October – and it was initially believed no customer data had been removed… Read more »
The Optus data breach, which has affected close to 10 million Australians, has sparked calls for changes to Australia’s privacy laws, placing limits on what and for how long organisations can hold our personal data. Equally important is to strengthen obligations for organisations to publicly disclose data breaches. Optus made a public announcement about its… Read more »
Amazon, Apple, and Google may have all started out of a garage, feeding the myth that all you need to start a successful tech company is a desk and a Wi-Fi connection. But it’s not as simple as this for deep technology companies. These companies produce IP-intensive, science-based innovations as they seek to solve some… Read more »
Don’t let all this talk of a looming global recession put the brakes on your new venture. On the contrary, now is the time to get busy building. Make sure you’re doing it right though with these “how to” style Spark Festival events in the final week of the festival. Future-proofing Your Startup Through… Read more »
Australian employers could resolve ICT skills shortages by winding back their expectations that candidates have university degrees, according to an extensive ACS analysis that found there are more jobs posted in ICT than any other profession except healthcare. ICT job postings increased by 14% between 2016 and 2021 and have outpaced the overall employment market… Read more »
Last week, Todd Sampson’s documentary Mirror Mirror: Love & Hate screened on Channel Ten. The documentary focuses on harms that occur through social media and online platforms. It raises important points about the need for awareness and regulation, but these are often crowded out by alarmist tropes that don’t reflect what we know from decades… Read more »
Australians have embraced cyber security and artificial intelligence (AI) qualifications over the past five years, but the industry needs to turbo-charge recruitment to fill its skills gap, according to newly released 2021 Census figures that confirm the number of IT qualified workers in Australia has grown by 36% since 2016. The latest tranche of data… Read more »
The battle of the billionaires has become the stuff of headlines. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has gone head-to-head with Australia’s richest man, billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest. Musk, founding investor in battery-powered car giant Tesla, has famously mocked hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles as “mind-bogglingly stupid”. Forrest has just placed a very large bet on green… Read more »
The Albanese government promisingly used the recent Jobs and Skills Summit to commit to tackling the job and talent crisis head on. One aspect of this included offering 6,800 extra permanent migration places for tech sector workers as a part of a promised 20% increase to this year’s permanent migration intake overall. This is excellent… Read more »
The National Skills Commission has added 10 more IT-related occupations to its list of skills facing national shortages, once again highlighting the need to train more technology talent in Australia. Web developers, database admins, and business analysts are now among jobs on the Commission’s official skills shortage list which informs Australia’s migration and skills development policies.… Read more »
Learn, build, reiterate. That was the mantra Raj Gautam, founder and chief executive of startup QL Space, learned when he took part in the Venture Catalyst Space program. Gautam launched his start-up less than a year ago and is developing a multi-sensor remote sensing satellite for the space industry and mining sectors. Once developed, high-tech tool… Read more »
In response to Australia’s biggest ever data breach, the federal government will temporarily suspend regulations that stop telcos sharing customer information with third parties. It’s a necessary step to deal with the threat of identify theft faced by 10 million current and former Optus customers. It will allow Optus to work with banks and government… Read more »
Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar steps down as co-CEO 
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
Logistics software startup Veyor Digital shifts $2.75 million pre-Series A for US plans 
Mentwell and Love Out Loud Foundation team up to support Bondi Junction victims 
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