COVID-19 is a chance to rebuild Australia as a digital leader

Global instability during COVID-19 is giving Australia the opportunity to emerge from the recession as a leader in digital, according to Melbourne-based demographer Simon Kuestenmacher.

Kuestenmacher, a research director at The Demographics Group, says that with the current economic and political unrest in USA, China and Europe, Australia has a chance to secure supply chain sovereignty and attract the world’s strongest digital talent.

Both are essential for cultivating digital innovation at home and, in turn, fuelling Australia’s recovery from the recession, he argued.

“Australia produces enough food for itself but at the digital end of the spectrum we all rely on lots of things like Facebook, Gmail, Google. In that space we heavily rely on Americans…” he said.

“There’s no reason why Google needs to sit in the Silicon Valley except for the reason that all the other [major tech] firms sit there and that’s where the talent is.

“It’s absolutely crucial that you harvest talent here, that there is free training and networking opportunities, and that we’re working closely with universities to ensure that young talent is coming up with relevant skills,” he continued.

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