GovHack Launch at Torrens University Sydney

Victor Michael Dominello,
openeing GovHack 2022 in Sydney 

Greetings from Torrens University's Sydney CBD campus, where Hon. Victor Michael Dominello MP, NSW Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, opened GovHack 2022. The theme of his talk was that the startup community can help identify the problems, as well as find solutions. Floods, fires, climate change, and jobs were confirmed as challenges for the start, as well as GovHack, he said there were than more than 14,000 NSW datasets open for use. One issue he focused on was a portable skills wallet, which can hold job relevant micro-credentials, and other certificates. This is not easy to achieve, with Australian university making several attempts at it over the last few years. The hypothetical qualification he said would be in demand was "Metaverse Engineering" at Torrens University. ;-)

ps: My first govhack was 2009.

School Students Expectations of Higher Education

In 2016, just over 70% of NSW students undertook some further education or training within six months of completing Year 12.  Just over 51% started a Bachelor degree and just over 9% a vocational qualification and 10% an apprenticeship or traineeships. This is from the NSW Secondary Students’ Post-School Destinations and Expectations2016 Annual Report, prepared by the Social Research Centre of the Australian National University, for the NSW Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation. In my view teachers and government need to encourage more students to undertake vocational qualifications.

Digital Literacy for New Teachers

A report on Digital Literacy and Learning in Initial Teacher Education, has been released by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA, March 2017). But as Dr Jane Hunter from UTS points out, in "The four challenges Australia faces to improve the digital literacy of new teachers" (3 April 2017), the report is full of jargon.

It seems to me, as a non-expert in the field of school teacher education (my book is on "Digital Teaching In Higher Education"), that the solution is quite simple: e-learning and blended learning should be used for basic teacher training. In this way computers in teaching will become normal and natural for new teachers and not something to be feared. These new teachers can then go out and educate their colleagues.

Dr. Hunter lists four challenges, which I suggest are not that challenging, if the new teachers are trained and equipped for digital teaching:

1. Connectivity:  To overcome a lack of consistent connectivity in schools, I suggest equipping the student teachers with a $400 mobile broadband touchscreen laptop, so they are not reliant on school infrastructure. The new teachers can then be sent out (like those in the film "Blackboards"), to provide a WiFi hot-spot for their class, even if the rest of the school lacks connectivity.
2. Funding for professional development: The new digitally trained and equipped teachers can provide PD for their colleagues as part of the new teacher's training.
3. Develop digital fluency: In the absence of any officially mandated framework, the digital curriculum provided to the new teachers can define what all teachers should know.
4. Educators involved with initial teacher education need continuous hands on experiences in schools: The trainee teachers will need placements in schools, as part of their training. Rather than their instructors sending these students out to fend for themselves on placements, the educators can provide advice to the trainee teachers on-line, via their mobile broadband laptops. This will connect the educators to the trainee teachers in real time and through them to the school community. I am helping do something like this as a tutor for ANU Techlauncher. Teams of students undertake real projects in industry and, as a byproduct, the students provide a path for academia to interact with business.

The NESA report makes seven recommendations, but these are aspirational, rather than actionable and unlikely to result in any tangible improvement in education:

1. NESA, in consultation with ITE providers and employing authorities, will review current ITE requirements in ICT to identify how the broader concept of digital literacy can be incorporated. The work will consider what digitally literate graduate teachers should know and be able to do.
2. NESA will advocate to AITSL, the need to review and revise the National Priority Area for ICT to reflect the concept of digital literacy. This review will also consider a revision of the NSW Elaborations in Priority Areas – ICT to include the knowledge of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property and online content accessibility guidelines in line with international standards.
3. NESA will advise NSW ITE providers on including knowledge and understanding of the AITSL ICT Statements in their ITE programs. This may be through course accreditation documentation or as a self-assessment tool to enhance teacher education students’ understanding of their own capabilities.
4. ITE providers should ensure that the provision and approach to the teaching of digital literacy, ICT skills and capabilities of teacher education students is supported in all relevant ITE units by contemporary research.
5. NESA, in conjunction with employing authorities and ITE providers, will identify exemplar materials that can be used by teacher education students during their professional experience placements focusing on digital literacy best practice.
6. NESA, in conjunction with employing authorities and ITE providers, will lead the identification of targeted professional development that aims to improve the digital literacy skills for supervisors supporting and assessing teacher education students on professional experience placements and mentors of beginning teachers.
7. NESA will undertake, in partnership with the NSW Council of Deans of Education, a project to share exemplary work by final year teacher education students on the integration of ICT within capstone teaching performance assessments.

From: Recommendations, Page 33, of DIGITAL LITERACY SKILLS AND LEARNING REPORT: A REPORT ON TEACHING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION IN NSW, NSW Education Standards Authority, March 2017 (Emphasis added)

Future of the Australian Technology Park

Rob Stokes, NSW Minister for Planning, announced 12 November 2015 that a consortium lead by property developer Mirvac had one the bid to purchase the Australian Technology Park (ATP) in Redfern, with the Commonwealth Bank as the major tenant.

The minister stated “Our aspiration for this site is to continue the transformation from dilapidated railway buildings to a growing technology hub,” ("Technology future secured at ATP", Government Release,  12 November, 2015). This is misleading, as the ATP has been in operation in the refurbished railway buildings, for two decades. I took part in numerous technology events at the ATP in the 1990s and in 1998 I used the ATP at a conference in Canberra, as an example of how to promote Australian technology. Recently I drew on this work in designing an innovation course for university students.


The problem has not been with the physical infrastructure of the ATP (which has been skillfully transformed), but that the NSW neglected this resource on its doorstep, the universities did not integrate innovation into their degree programs and the federal government did not have effective policies to support this.

Scott Farquhar of Atlassian, part of a rival Walker bid for the ATP, has been critical of the Mirvac/CBA win a "tragic missed opportunity for Australia". However, while Atlassian is a successful Australian tech company, it is difficult to see how their proposal would be materially different from that of Mirvac. The key to making the ATP a success is to use the current empty space (used for surface car parking) for modern high-rise office space. The existing low railway workshops can then be given over to exhibition, conference space and start-up support.

The Commonwealth Bank has integrated innovation into its Sydney CBD headquarters. I was one of the judges for the weekend long Randon Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) held in the roof-top meeting room of the Bank's building (there is also an innovation centre downstairs). This atmosphere should able to be replicated at ATP.

The reborn ATP will likely be a success with long term commercial tenants to fund it, universities now starting to teach innovation to their students and with NSW and federal government taking an interest in supporting innovation in effective ways.

Declaration of Interest: I own shares in the Commonwealth Bank and have been previously paid by ATP to arrange tech-events at the Park.

Developing a Strategy for Exporting Australian Educational Technology to China

Greetings from the 47th Floor of the MLC Tower in Sydney, where I am attending a meeting on "Developing a strategy to support the NSW edutech sector access international opportunities". This is hosted by the StudyNSW section of the export arm of the NSW Government and called by the Sydney Edutech Group. There are about 25 people from the education sector and government present. The education export part of NSW Government was recently moved to the Premier's Department, in recognition of the importance of this sector.

We are getting an overview of the Chinese education system, The point was made that Chinese venture investment is now A$350M per quarter and equal to the USA. Most of this investment is in the K-12 tutoring, ESL and post secondary skills. There are fewer opportunities in the government sector (I suspect there is more opportunity than expected).

Telstra Muru-D Start-up Accelerator in Sydney, working with China was mentioned. The point was made that there are reforms by the Chinese government (I suggest this is an opportunity for education exports). Australia's Chinese population was seen as a resource for dealing with China.

Some groups are publishers: Phoenix Press and Pegasus Media, EduTech: New Orient,  Accelerators: Learnlab, Innovation Works, Companies: National football coaching reform, Angels and VCs: Zhen Fund, Fresco Ventures, Startups: Bering EduTech Group, Government: National and Beijing, Universities: Beijing Normal.

I found it interesting that working with Chinese universities was included almost as an afterthought. Australian academics have access to their Chinese univalents and might be a useful channels. I  attend the ICCSE Computer Science and Education Conference with Chinese university academics. Also there are Australian education conferences which Chinese academics may attend: ANU is running the Australasian Computer Science Week of Conferences, 2 – 5 Feb 2016, in Canberra.

One interesting point made at the meeting is that Austria is a very respected education brand in China. This directly benefits Australian educational institutions with Chinese students, but can also benefit education technology providers looking for Chinese investment and sales.

After discussing the investment environment in China, the meeting moved on to discuss a possible trade delegation. This might be a visit over five days in a few cities in mid August 2015 (with possible NSW Government representation).

Muru-D's events were suggested as a model for a deligation. This had ten companies showing products in three cities Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. The idea is to make the presentations look big, by having several confidante presentations. The problem of making something as esoteric as education pedagogy look impressive was discussed, as was the benefits of simultaneous translation (English pretension with slides in Chinese was considered adequate). Those interested in an EdTech delegation to China can contact Terry Hilsberg.

"StudyNSW and Sydney Edutech Group invite founders and members of edutech startups to a consultative round table to assist in the development of a coordinated strategy for NSW edutech companies in accessing global markets, in particular China.

The round table will also discuss opportunities for possible government-led edutech missions overseas, including to China, and how these missions could best be structured to assist NSW startups. Please come along to have your say in how the NSW government can best support you access international markets.

StudyNSW was established by the NSW government in 2014 to support international education in NSW. One of its functions is to identify and generate international market development opportunities and new technology-enabled models of delivery.

The round table consultation led by Terry Hilsberg, Sydney Edutech Group. Overseas mission visit discussion

Edutech Group and StudyNSW We are a 400+ strong Sydney meet-up group, interested in connecting educators, tech geeks, start-ups and investors who are passionate about the education space and interested in applying technology to solve current problems in the education sector. If you are a developer / hacker / entrepreneur / investor — who is passionate about education — please join us.

StudyNSW is a dedicated unit established by the NSW Government to increase the number of international students studying in NSW or with our education providers overseas, improve the quality of their experience while in the State and recognise their contributions to our communities.