Australia 4.0

The Australia 4.0 discussion series and summit are designed to open the door to substantial innovation and business opportunities throughout the Australian ICT sector. These activities will explore the profound changes required of the Australian electricity system to realise a Net Zero Australia. That outcome demands significant collaboration between the energy and ICT sectors.

Australia 4.0 is a Pearcey Foundation thought leadership initiative to identify and discuss the challenges and opportunities of a digital and data enabled transformation of the electricity sector to Australia Net Zero.

It follows on from the very successful
Australia 3.0 initiative which focussed on: Mining, Infrastructure, Health and Government Services.

Pearcey is proud to convene national discussions that focus on areas where ICT can have a major impact on the national economy. Pearcey seeks to collaborate with other industry associations and groupings to ensure diversified views and opinions are canvassed and embraced.

Download A4.0 White Paper Download A4.0 White Paper

Read the draft Australia 4.0 Communiqué ...

A4.0 Topics

Through a series of online discussions led by experts and covering six areas, Australia 4.0 will endeavour to identify the key issues/obstacles to ensuring a ‘new’ electricity system is fit for purpose as we migrate to net zero emissions. Topics proposed include:

Overview
Future grid
Network intelligence
Energy resilience
Energy & Communciations
Consumer grid
Critical digital technologies

While the energy transition is a diverse and complex matter, each discussion topic will be used to provide focus, to clearly articulate the data and digitalisation challenges confronting success in reaching a net zero electricity system.

These will be moderated Zoom meetings where panellists and audience are drawn from the ICT sector, the Energy and Power industries, regulators, government, researchers, etc. Our hope is that shared understanding and cross disciplinary thinking will help each participant identify opportunities for policy, technology, innovation and commercialisation.

Review all the sessions and their recordings now ...

Summit

On 30^th October 2023, a half-day meeting will be held to summarise the findings arising from the discussions and to ratify a communiqué that clarifies the criticality of the challenges identified and to highlight the opportunities for the ICT sector. A group of individuals have identified and agreed to collaborate based on their experience and expertise to prepare the communiqué and offer suggestions and recommendations to assist government and industry develop policies and strategies to improve upon current plans for the Australian ICT sector to enable this complex transformation.

Learn more and register for the Summit now...

A4.0 Aims

The Australia 4.0 proposition is to catalyse ideas from the latest thinking about how ICT can help address the critical challenges that confront our nation. Digital technologies are the horizontal enabling factor that underpins most, if not all, elements of achieving higher productivity in our national economy. Shifts to open data and calls for inclusive development challenge us to deliver bold solutions for the future prosperity of Australia.

The focus is on developing new, innovative ideas to harness technology to help our nation migrate to a Net Zero electricity sector. In the process, we hope to help our industries adapt those ideas to enhance their success in global competition. With clarity about the innovation required and the commercial opportunities our governments can make better informed, evidence-based policy and regulation decisions.

For Australia to maintain its global competitiveness, and thereby create the high-value jobs of the future for its people, it must be a leader in the creation, nurturing and adoption of innovation of high productivity solutions to key economic, societal and environmental challenges.

Across all sectors, jobs will need the right skills for the information age. Harnessing our national characteristics to sustain and improve our standard of living will necessarily involve exploiting new technologies.

The Australia 4.0 process aims to play a significant part in the ecosystem looking to ensure that we take advantage of the step change that is required to prosper in the 21st century.

A4.0 Team

Australia 4.0 is a collaboration among the Pearcey Foundation and the broader ecosystem. This is reflected in the leadership team:

2023 Organising Committee

Wayne Fitzsimmons OAM Co-Chair

Chairman of Pearcey Foundation

Jennifer George Co-Chair

CEO/Founder of Strategic Commercialisation Australia

Colin Farrelly

Partner/Owner at Indago Partners

Supported by:

Admin Sub-Committee	Finance Sub-Committee
Jordan Green (Pearcey National Secretary) Kerryn Nelson (Big Mouth Marketing Communications) Martin Aungle (Explore Communications)	Simon Foster (Pearcey National Treasurer) Jordan Green (Pearcey National Secretary) Wayne Fitzsimmons OAM (Pearcey National Chairman)

Latest news on Australia 4.0 ...

30 Mar

VIP Launch - Australia 4.0 Communiqué

The Honourable Ed Husic MP, Minister for Industry and Science will launch the Australia 4.0 Communiqué which outlines five pilot projects to accelerate the progress towards the ultimate goal of a net-zero energy system for Australia.

Australia 4.0 is an initiative of the Pearcey Foundation to help our nation move towards a net zero energy system by enabling the innovative contributions of the ICT sector in collaboration with the energy sector. Over 100 discrete business and regulatory challenges identified, were synthesised into to 10 key challenges with three overarching themes.

19 Nov '23

Vale Ariel Liebman

Professor Ariel Liebman was a key supporter of Australia 4.0. He worked at the intersection of ICT and the future renewable grid. Ariel was going to moderate one of the Australia 4.0 sessions but, since he was to be overseas at the time, he arranged for other colleagues to assist. Sadly, Ariel passed away after a brief illness on November 9^th 2023 and will be sorely missed by his family, friends and colleagues.

9 Oct '23

Australia 4.0 Summit

A half-day gathering to review the findings from our seven national discussions. The Australia 4.0 discussion series and summit are designed to open the door to substantial innovation and business opportunities throughout the Australian ICT sector.

These activities explore the profound changes required of the Australian electricity system to realise a Net Zero Australia. This outcome demands significant collaboration between the energy and ICT sectors.

The Australia 4.0 Summit is intended to include diverse perspectives, across key stakeholders, exploring the opportunities for the Australian ICT sector to contribute to the transition to Net Zero of the Australian electricity system.

14 Aug '23

Australia 4.0 DIF Session

Join us for this very special Australia 4.0 DIF session, presented in partnership by the Pearcey Foundation and ACS. This event will look at whether the existing telecommunications infrastructure (e.g., NBN, existing Internet services, 5G and the like) can support the needs of the next generation electricity distribution and transmission networks as Australia transitions to a Net Zero emissions world. The panel will explore the opportunities for ICT professionals to enable and enhance the transition of the Australian electricity system to the Net Zero Emissions model.