Companies Leading STEM with Purpose
The future of work, the robotics revolution, careers at risk from AI, the wondrous possibilities of VR, and the much-coined phrase in reference to our future generations: they’ll do jobs we haven’t even thought of yet.
Someone’s thinking of them though, those jobs. They must be. Our economic and social future is riding on it.
We may be lulled into a false sense of security in Australia, with 25 years of sustained economic growth, but to borrow from Sam Cooke ‘a change is gonna come’. Our baby boomers are retiring and will require economic support as they age, there will be less people working than can support them, and the nature of work is shifting in one of those major ‘new industrial age’ ways. We can all fret about working harder, or we can work smarter. Enter: STEM. The concern here is, we haven’t made great moves as a nation in this field for decades. This article from Social Ventures Australia indicates that the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) shows Australia has not improved in performances in these areas in 20 years.
Investing in furthering the knowledge and skills base around science, technology, engineering and maths is not a new idea – it just suddenly seems like a very urgent one as we contemplate the need to transform whole industries to adapt to increasing levels of automation across broad skill levels, retraining and reemployment of people who are rendered redundant by technological change, and the social outfall of these changes.
There are Australian companies taking leadership in this space. Some are investing in education, research or discovery. There is focus on the future – which is a great thing, and plenty of space for how to adapt the existing workforce for a new wave of change.
Five ways businesses are investing in STEM
For now, these are five initiatives being led by Australian businesses to step up the nation’s wealth of STEM know-how.
1) PwC – education for the future
PwC’s 21st Century Minds (21CM) initiative is powered by an investment of $2.5m from the professional services firm to rapidly scale some of the most promising STEM education initiatives in Australia. In 2016, PwC and the 21CM cross-sectoral community supported 20 initiatives to help new initiatives achieve rapid and effective scale. Watch the video.
2) Vodafone – donate data while you sleep
Talk about multitasking for a good cause! Vodafone’s smartphone app DreamLab is powering medical research. It’s a genius concept allowing the brightest minds in Australia to use pooled data from idle phones to power research into cancer. All customers need to do is download the DreamLab app and let it do its work while you sleep. The details of how to participate are outlined here, and you can read this story from Samantha Oakes at the Garvan Institute.
3) Staples – new range for new solutions
Launched in March this year, Staples released a new range of office, facility and education products to help support 250 research projects into illnesses and diseases that target kids and young people at the Telethon Kids Institute. Telethon Kids Institute’s Director of Communications and Development, Elizabeth Chester, said: “It’s an easy and effective way for organisations to make a difference to children’s lives through everyday products.” Staples was appointed as the Telethon Kids Institute’s exclusive Supply Partner for stationery and office products, ICT equipment and software and print-related services in 2016. This partnership is a great example of the creation of shared value through the provision of products and services at the core of Staples’ business, as well as cause-based marketing initiatives in support of the not-for-profit.
4) Samsung and SVA working on bright spots
Announced in December last year, mobile innovator Samsung and Social Ventures Australia have come together to expand the Bright Spots School Connection. The idea is to improve the STEM education opportunities for disadvantaged students by providing professional development for school leadership, STEM training and site visits, intervention strategies and participation in STEM activities. Tess Ariotti, Samsung’s Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, said: “We hope to reach students who aren’t already engaging with STEM with high quality learning programs that will help equip them with skills for the workforce of the future.”
5) Telstra and digital inclusion
In partnership with RMIT, the Centre for Social Impact and Roy Morgan Research, Telstra has invested year-on-year in an annual study of digital inclusion in Australia. This year the report was released in the first week of August and indicated that while, overall, more Australians were digitally included – the gaps between digitally included and excluded are widening and run in parallel with economic, education and employment opportunities in terms of haves and have nots. Telstra’s community commitment includes the Access for Everyone program to keep Australians from all walks of life connected.
