With the unique, all-encompassing challenges of a global pandemic subsiding, albeit with learnings still to digest, our state is well placed to lead the way into the next phase of global development.

We sit amid what should be embraced as an exciting era, where automation and robotics not just co-exist but greatly complement sectors such as renewable energy, health care and tourism. With our state acknowledged as an emerging global player in technological savvy and start-up ambition, a bold, collaborative spirit can help ride this wave of opportunity.

QUT, along with the wider higher education sector, is primed to be at the forefront as Queensland leads the charge. Our state can shine, nationally and globally, in energy transition. Through plugging into powerful industry, government and university collaborations, our university is playing a key role in battery technology and innovative energy storage, harnessed by ground-breaking research, testing and development capabilities and in supporting communities in transition. Our battery hub at Banyo, with partner facilities such as the (Lava Blue) critical mineral project at Redlands, fosters our state’s growing reputation for tackling challenges around power conversion, supply chain and safety. Commercialisation and implementation of multi-disciplinary research is supporting the growth of Australia’s battery industry, with co-investment already worth millions to our partners.

Our battery hub at Banyo, with partner facilities such as the (Lava Blue) critical mineral project at Redlands, fosters our state’s growing reputation for tackling challenges around power conversion, supply chain and safety. Commercialisation and implementation of multi-disciplinary research is supporting the growth of Australia’s battery industry, with co-investment already worth millions to our partners.

AI and robotic capabilities – a key focus at QUT alongside pillars such as Indigenous excellence and engagement, entrepreneurship and leadership – will build on Queensland’s traditional strengths across the resource sector and agriculture, increasing efficiency, safety and service delivery and supporting communities undergoing transition.

A platform of STEM and data skills, digital literacy, emotional intelligence, resilience and critical thinking will be the springboard from which future leaders thrive in reshaping our state’s key economic sectors. In a surging era of digital transformation, with an increasingly diversified, innovation-centred economy, automation can enhance and rejuvenate, not endanger or risk, traditional ways of operation, boosting new employment and investment opportunities.

We are translating world-leading research into real-world societal and commercial outcomes. Our researchers are driven by diverse passions but a shared vision of a cleaner, more sustainable planet, shaped by cleaner mining practices and biofuels through to sustainable animal and food production, solar research and reef rejuvenation. 

In health care, there remains a desperate need to incorporate digital skills and innovative, critical thinking to improve and extend equitable, diverse service delivery across our vast state.

Despite rapid technological advances, access remains difficult in regional and remote communities. Technology, data science, digital communication skills and AI can purposefully align with traditional healthcare provision to boost efficiency of delivery while reducing costs.

And given our state’s unique natural environment, Queensland can lead the way for green tourism – reinforcing another central pillar of our state’s economy as the industry rebounds with a vengeance.

In a world more closely connected yet also more challenged than ever, I can think of no better state to be in than Queensland as we steel ourselves to excel through innovation and digital transformation.