 sort of environment, the world that you'll be going back into as you continue your careers. So we're going to be looking at this question of building your career, preparing for a career in the fourth industrial revolution. I had the opportunity recently to speak to Greg Vines about this topic. Now Greg is the Deputy Director General for Management and Reform at the International Labor Organization in Switzerland. Greg is an exceptionally well respected and skilled leader in international affairs and international public servant. He is an impartial consensus builder with decades of experience working with governments, workers and employers across the Asia-Pacific region internationally and in multilateral networks. He is at the forefront of what we're talking about today, what the new world of work is going to look like, especially as we start to emerge from COVID. What will the workplace look like? How will technology shape that workplace? And how are you going to position yourselves to make the most of those opportunities and how that will shape the future of work for you? So I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Greg. I'd like to play a little bit of that conversation for you now. Then we'll introduce our panel. That'll be an opportunity again for you to ask your questions as we continue to explore this theme of preparing for your career in the fourth industrial revolution. Let's have a listen now to my conversation with Greg Vines. Greg Vines, thank you so much for giving us your time. Much appreciated. That's a pleasure, Stan. It's good to be with you. When we talk about the future of work, how different is it going to look in the 21st century? Look, I think it's going to look incredibly different. And back in those COVID came along. And now the future of work really is faced, what I would say is almost a perfect storm where we've got the implications of the pandemic and just the chaos that has brought globally on jobs, on employment, on training, on inequalities. We've got the issues around climate and the need for just transitions to the new technology, the new carbon neutral need for production, for work. And then, of course, we've got the so-called fourth industrial revolution with technology just taking over everything. So as I say, it's almost this perfect storm for the future of work. And this is, I think, where it becomes even more relevant, the ILO approach around a human-centered approach to the future of work. We see with technology enormous opportunities, enormous opportunities to improve the life of people all around the world. But there are also major, major challenges and threats that we've got to address, that we've got to make sure that it's people who are designing the future that we're not just responding to what the technology is doing to us and doing to the world. When we talk about the fourth industrial revolution, as broadly agreed, that the previous three industrial revolutions benefited people, the risk here with artificial intelligence, particularly the rise of robotics, is that people could become obsolete. We need to, you know, behind all of this technology, there's people, you know, this isn't inventing itself. There are people there controlling it, and we've really, I think, got to come together as a global community to put in place the necessary protections to make sure that we do get the benefits of what technology can provide, not just the challenges it's going to throw up. How do we ensure that the benefits of a fourth industrial revolution are indeed shared in a world where nations can put themselves first? Yeah, look, Sam, what you're saying is exactly right. And all of the work that we've done that's supported by the work the OECD and other organisations have done have shown that those inequalities that pre-existed COVID have just got worse through COVID, and we are concerned they're going to get worse with climate, they're going to get worse with the technology, the fourth industrial revolution as well. And so what we've got to make sure is that governments start to take a more global, regional perspective on these sorts of issues. We hear the right words, you know, COP26 recently, we've heard governments saying the right words and recognising the need for some sort of global unity. We've seen the same coming out of the G20, but now what we've got to do is turn that into action. The words are there, the stuff's on paper, but we're not seeing it happen on the ground, and we really need to look, I think, in Australia's case, for example, and the scholarship program that Australia runs, I think is a very good example of the capacity to build those relationships, to build that awareness across countries so that we can provide that assistance. A country, an advanced country like Australia, to be able to provide assistance to its neighbours in the region, I think is going to be critical because we're not going to have a global recovery from all of these challenges unless it is truly global. We've got to make sure that the whole of the world is able to move forward. Now, not for a second do I underestimate the extraordinary challenge for that, but if we don't, as a humanity, meet that challenge, meet that challenge head on, I fear what your introduction was, that we are all just going to lose out from this. But having said that, there is also extraordinary opportunity. There is extraordinary opportunity. The way that technology potentially can be used to support jobs, to support skill development, to support communities in lower income countries, in countries that have got these massive challenges from climate, from rising sea levels and so on. But we need our governments to be thinking beyond their own borders, to be able to really try and address this. You spoke in the past, Greg, about the mega drivers that are going to really drive the 21st century. You've touched on some of the climate here and demography and the fourth industrial revolution and globalisation, which has been a mixed bag, hasn't it? On the one hand, it's led, you know, we live in a closer world today, an explosion of technology and opening up of new markets and people lifted out of poverty, but we're also revealing those inequalities that you spoke about. And the erosion of community, and I wondered if, you know, given who we're talking to here as well, the importance of community and the sustainability of community. You know, what we will see is that I think that technology, that, you know, new jobs, new climate friendly jobs are going to give us that opportunity, whether we grasp it or not, it's a different thing, but that opportunity to rebuild a lot of communities. At the moment, the world of work is almost borderless. You know, particularly with the platform economies, particularly with supply chains, quite often, you know, the geographical borders, the sovereign borders are irrelevant to work that's being done. You quite often don't know where somebody who's working for you or doing work for you. You don't know where they are. You don't know whose employment boards they're under. You don't know what part of the community they are. And I think that what we've really got to look at as part of this recovery is part of moving forward to shape the impact of the fourth industrial revolution is really to look at how we can use regional areas, use the opportunities for new industries, for new approaches to work, not just in the major urban areas, but get them out into those rural areas to build those communities at a distance. And I do believe that, you know, technology is something that doesn't matter who you're living next to or what city you're living in or what town you're living in, breaks those borders. But for humanity's sake, we've got to keep that interaction going. And look, and I think that is one of the interesting things about what we've, you know, this extraordinary two years that we've all just been through, the reaction from people now so eager to get back into their workplaces. I think people want a restoration of community. I think they want to be part of community, be it for their personal life or be it for their working life. So, you know, we need the, we need to follow the people. We need to follow the people. We need to, comes back to what I said right at the start, you know, our approach to it's got to be human-centered. We can't let technology rule it. We can't let global supply change rule it. We've got to have this focused around people. Just a final thought, Greg, before we go. For our awardees, what advice from your own personal experience and your work in this area, what advice would you offer to them? My advice to them, and this is, I mean, I have not planned my career. I had no idea when I was studying that I was going to end up working for an international organisation in Geneva. It's really an opportunity, it's really a case, I believe, of taking those opportunities, you know, to think about what you want to be able to do and what's going to be the best way to get there is about that, you know, there are such tremendous opportunities out there. The participants in this program are obviously people with strong leadership capacity and, you know, I would like to call on them to take their capacity as leaders, to step forward, to really try and take this experience that they've had, not only to develop their own careers, but to support their communities, to support that building of international relationships. So the short advice is, if there's an opportunity there, take it, you know, just take it. And particularly one that you get not just an intellectual stimulation from, but something that, you know, touches you here and that's the best way to drive a career. Do stuff that you enjoy and do stuff that can have an impact. Greg, you're a man of, you know, my own heart there. Always say, always say yes and then we're going to do it. Yeah, that's been my motto. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you again. No, thanks very much, Sam. It's great to catch up with you. Wasn't that fantastic? I mean, yeah, give them a hand, of course. It was a really great conversation I had with Greg because it could have gone on for longer. In fact, we chatted afterwards for a lot longer, but those questions about how we come together in a world that's increasingly smaller and yet we know that we're seeing the strains, aren't we? We're seeing the rise of populism, borders going back up, increase in nationalism. I think COVID has recast all of that. Technology is changing the way that we work. What it means for the future of communities, I think Greg touched on a really interesting thing there. And all of you in this room are all here because you're already engaged with that. You're all risk takers, otherwise you wouldn't be here. The ability to say yes. I saw all of you, a lot of you nodding when he said, take the opportunity. And you do need to grab that opportunity, you need to take the opportunity and then work out later. How is this going to work? But say yes first. And all of you have done this. But what happens when you go home? How do you reconcile your own personal growth with your future back home? Everybody changes when I lived away from Australia for 20 years and I was a different person when I came back. Different even from people in my own family. So how do we manage that? What's the balance between personal ambition and your desire to serve your own countries, your communities, your international global citizens and yet you all come from somewhere? What's the importance of community? And what about the world of technology? Many people say right now that the biggest nation in the world is Facebook. And in many respects it is. It is extraterritorial nation. People belong to Facebook world. You're almost like their own form of citizenship. So that's challenging governments and challenging the ability of governments to legislate and deal with these new companies that emerge out of the changes of technology. So all of that we want to talk about during our panel. We're gonna have a discussion amongst the panelists now and then we'll open it up for Q&A. So think about your questions. It's really important that we get those questions in today. It's your chance to ask the panel that we have here today their advice or to challenge them or to whatever questions are on your mind. Let me introduce the panel that we have have been waiting patiently to join us. John Carr is the Senior Director for Technology Programs at the Asia Foundation. He oversees a multi-country portfolio of tech focused initiatives designed to promote prosperity and inclusive growth in the Indo-Pacific region. John holds a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from the University of California a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the University of Washington. Australia Awards alumni, Faye Wongso is the CEO and co-founder of Coompilit, if I hope I pronounced that right. Faye, have I pronounced that right? Coompilit, is that right? It's Coomple. Coomple it, okay. Coomple it, very good, thank you. And recently became a national coordinator of the 1000 Digital Startup Movement. Faye is an active ecosystem builder who believes in the power of networking and Faye holds a Master of Peace and Conflict Studies and attended the University of Sydney. Of course it points it out. She's been where all of you are here today as an Australia Awards alumni. Professor Carl Benedict Frey is a global thought leader on the future of work and how technology is altering the workforce and our economies. He is the Oxford Martin City Fellow and founder and director of the program on the future of work and Oxford Martin School at the Oxford Martin School University of Oxford. Dr. Jenny Gordon is with me here on the stage and honorary professor at the Center for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University. She's also a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute, one of Australia's leading think tanks on foreign policy. Jenny is a member of the Australian International Agricultural Research Centre's Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisory Panel. That's a mouthful. And the Asian Development Bank Institute's Advisory Committee. Please thank everybody for joining us here today. Now, again, remember, submit your questions to the panel and during the course of discussion and then we'll come to our Q&A. Don't wait till the end. Send those through. You will see the Ask a Question box on the bottom left-hand corner of your screen and of course we look forward to your thought-provoking questions. Let's get into the discussion. Let me start with you, Carl, and I'll bring you in, John, on this as well. What does the future of work look like? John? Well, we don't know. I think that's one of the first points to consider. I mean, I think we're at an inflection point where new technologies are very likely going to be changing the way manufacturing takes place in the developing and developed world. There's going to be a lot more automation. That automation is going to be smarter. There's going to be a lot more connected devices. Those connected devices are going to work together. And it's very likely that in some instances, there'll be an impact on jobs. And I think that's one of the things that people are most concerned about, which is as these new technologies come online, there's less demand for certain types of jobs. And I think it's really important to stress that certain types of jobs are more affected than others. We can talk about that as we go along. But I think also something important to stress is that these new technologies are actually tools for change. And so there may be new opportunities that come online as a result of their introduction that lead to more productivity gains that ultimately create jobs. So maybe to answer your question, we don't know, but we expect some turbulence in labor markets that I think best advice to governments in the region is to consider managing these changes rather than taking a laissez-faire approach and a hands-off approach. Yeah, Carl, so much of this revolves around technology. And I put this question to Greg Vines, and I'd like to get your thoughts on this just after what John said there about the way that technology is going to make some jobs obsolete, create new jobs, and our preparedness for that. There is a doomsday theory, isn't there? And people see the worst in this, and they say that we'll become the slaves of the robots that artificial intelligence will be the masters of the universe and that humans become redundant. That's a worst-case scenario, but one that's already been put out there. How do we ensure that technology works for us and not the other way around? Well, as John mentioned, I think the only thing we know about the future is that we are pretty bad at predicting it, but we do know what capabilities machines today have. And as our research and others have shown, machines still perform quite poorly when it comes to complex social interactions. So the state of the art here is probably best described by Lubner Price during test competitions where chatbots try to convince humans of them being a person. And some people in the field argue that there was a breakthrough a couple of years ago when one chatbot managed to convince 30% of human judges of it being a person. But it did so by pretending to be a Russian, orphan, 13-year-old boy speaking English as his second language with no understanding of English culture. And this is basic text communication, right? When it comes to much more complex in-person type of social interactions, humans still hold a comparative advantage. And the same is true of creative tasks. The same is true of complex perception and manipulation tasks. So the future in which machines have taken over all the jobs is, if it will ever happen, very, very distant. That doesn't mean that there will be any loses in the process. And there was during the first industrial revolution, the Luddites, as we all know, famously rioted against the mechanized factory. And then they didn't stand to benefit from mechanization themselves. So their resistance made sense. And in similar ways, I was mentioned during the introduction, many communities have suffered from automation and offshoring where jobs have dried up whether due to automation or globalization. We've seen increases in crime. We've seen deteriorating public services. And in the United States, we even see increases in suicide and substance abuse as a consequence. So this is having a lot of bad social consequences as it is. And we don't have to predict the jobless future or dystopia to find the problems. We have challenges enough as it is. Yeah, Jenny, that's really interesting. What Carl raised there, I think particularly questions of inequality and people who feel left behind. And we've already seen, and people in this room are going to be going back to their countries. And we've seen the impact of globalization and inequality improving people's lives on the one hand. But on the other hand, leaving people behind. And I think, as Carl mentioned there, that manifests itself in a political blowback as well. So how do we manage this time and mass movement of people, increasing refugees we're seeing and climate change is only going to contribute to that? The impact of technology. How do we manage that to ensure that those left behind don't stay behind? Someone who's going to lose their job as a truck driver because of automated vehicles doesn't get thrown onto the scrap heap? That's a big question. And from a development construct, our model we've had of development where low wage nations were able to kind of get manufacturing, take advantage of scale, take advantage of technology transfer and then lift the wages. So you saw that, the models Japan, Korea, South Korea, China, incredibly successful approaches to development. And so one of the challenges is going to be for developing economies is going to be what's the alternative if automation means that those low wage jobs and the value of scale is no longer as big as it used to be. So that's actually one of the big challenges of development. So when we're thinking about developed economies, it's a slightly different question because if you think about what's happened with globalization and technology, it's lifted an awful lot of people across a developing world out of poverty but it has led to pockets of really inequality, particularly in countries that didn't have much of a redistributive system. The United States is an example. Is a classic example of that and it's great to see economists who'd been pretty much in the vein of, well, they should just move to where the jobs are and retrain, actually go, hang on a sec, they don't move and when they don't move, then the value of their assets fall, their support systems are in those locations, their ability to move is quite limited. And so we actually have to think about place-based strategies that actually build up alternatives for people. And one of the things I think we need to do is teach people to have really productive leisure and have sufficient redistribution that people can live a good life and work out what to do that's really valuable to the community and valued by the community. And so it shifts a little bit yourself and your well-being based around your paid employment and your salary being the indicator of your value to what are you giving to the community and to the people around you that is an indicator of your value because that's the stuff that's gonna grow. The stuff that's gonna grow is artisanship, design work, social services, caring services. That's where the big growth in jobs is going to be. But you've got to have sufficient income to support that. I'll come to Fay and just admit it, but that's really interesting, Jenny, because I've spoken to people about this and they say that robots, for instance, will end up doing, and they're already doing a lot of the work of surgeons. But the nurse may be, because of the personal interaction, the human touch may become even more valued. Is that the sort of thing you start to see where humans, where there is a human engagement, we start to value that more? Well, I think we already value it as people and in our relationship. Not in the marketplace. We don't value it in the marketplace. And the challenge is going to be having enough production and productivity growth to support paying everybody a bit more evenly and paying that value. So people sort of say, well, you should pay more, but at some point, you can't just take from one bit and give to the other bit because first of all, these people never want to give it up. You've got it, right? And so you're going to actually have to grow the pie. Building equality is much easier if you've got a growth going on. And so we do need to use technology to really enhance productivity. And that's been one of the interesting challenges if we've seen this digital revolution and we haven't seen considerable growth in productivity as being delivered by it. And so that's one of the things got to work out how to do. And there's a lot laying behind that. But to my mind, that's sort of the big challenge for developed economies and for the developing economies is looking at alternative strategies beyond the we're going to sell exports to the developed world because that's where the market is. And in fact, the market, the big market for things where scale and application of technology to lower wage labor is going to be within those developing economies. So Africa selling into Africa, enormous opportunities to massively improve productivity through that approach. And so a lot of that is going to be going on. And then the other thing that's really valuable is the skill sets. And so you're sitting here, the people I can see in this room with this amazing skill set and a whole range of areas, right? And one of the things I really think is important is not just coding, right? So digital revolution, fourth industrial revolution is not about teaching everybody to code. It's about teaching people to engage effectively with technology, to be able to identify what technology is really useful for you to use, what technology will make your job easier, will make other people's lives easier and will enable things to be done better. And so that's the skill that we really need rather than the ability of everybody to code. Faye, you are, you've been, we're all the people in this room are right now. And I want you to draw on your experience with the Australia Awards and your experience in going back home and the work you're doing now in this rapidly changing world. If it's about preparing for the future, if it's about skilling yourself for the future, we heard earlier today about being the architect of your career. What should people in the room here be thinking about and looking to? Well, one of the mantra I always say to myself, because I'm actually is now speaking on behalf of the people who received Australia Awards, and then we will bring it back to our home country and actually do something. It's actually we're never not acting based out of fear. So looking or hearing about like the perspective of Jenny, Carl and John, when we talked about industrial change, this fear was already there since the 50, when the factories were set in Europe. So actually in Indonesia, for the last few years, we've actually initiated a huge conference by the digital ecosystem players in the digital economy, start-ups, innovations, corporations, but the brand is actually the thing. The future is not digital. It's just to spike the conversation that like you all said, later on we will evolve to focus more on what humans does best. So creativity, decision to manage conflict, aviation, try to find solutions, and digital platform, it's just a way for us to do all of those things better. So I don't think the fear is justified to withhold us to do something impactful. I think it's actually a very good way for us to see how we can make this into a better world. All of us, the Australian awardees doing different fields and sectors. And when we talked about the current generation, because I work a lot with 20 years old, it's already very different the way they see the world. And it's also very different the way they see the career development and how they actually enhance themselves. It's not practical anymore. Sometimes it's a lot of times horizontal because the possibilities, the channels of learnings, the sectors are all endless. The channels are all there, enabled by all of these digital platform. So then we actually, when we talked about talent, when we talked about sustainability, when we talked about solutions, and then how the current generations actually value things because currently we see a lot of young people talking about welfare and impact instead of actually getting all the investment and profiting and all that. Of course, there are so many groups of people, but then I think in different sectors, things are changing in the human evolutions as well, not just the digital and the industrial part. That's a really good point. John, so much of the world and the challenges of our world depend on our ability to work together and looking around the room here and a feature of the Australia Awards is that you bring people from the region from all different backgrounds and people learn from each other and take that back. But we know when it comes to the big challenges of our world, it's often nations putting themselves first or borders going back up. And part of COVID was to retreat behind borders because you were safer. We've seen difficulty, yes, in the vaccinations have been developed, but in the rollout of the vaccinations, getting that to all the different parts of the world. Climate change is another example. We have people here from the Pacific and we saw the recent COP conference and the complaint at the end of it that here again was the developed world or the big powers dominating the agenda and those who are at the frontline of the impact of climate still struggling. So looking forward, how do you see the fourth industrial revolution, the technology, the impact in that? Do you see that bringing us together and creating more multilateral ways of dealing with the challenges of world faces or do we see a greater sense of nationalism? How do you see that playing out? Well, I think there's really a great deal of recognition in the big intergovernmental organizations of need to move beyond just sole focus on trade-based cooperation. And what I mean by that is if you look at APAC or you look at ASEAN, I think even if you go back and you look at COP, there's this recognition that focusing on inclusive growth is a real important priority for the region in the Asia Pacific region. Specifically, I mean, I can only speak for that part of the world, it's where I work. And I think that it's linked to this issue of technological change and the challenge to workers. I think politicians around the world are all concerned about employment. They don't wanna see circumstances evolving out of control that lead to a large scale unemployment. There's a need to cooperate regionally and focus on making sure that communities that haven't traditionally benefited from growth and development and trade because Asia is a beacon to the world about the success of cooperation towards trade goals. The benefits of that cooperation need to be shared and distributed more widely. I think people recognize that in the region, they're trying to find ways to work towards that end. And then when you're thinking specifically about the future of work, I think there's a great deal of recognition that there needs to be more done to focus on human resource development in the region. There needs to be a better understanding of the skills, gaps and challenges that workers are going to probably face is technology really ends up becoming more demanding of workers. You need to have more advanced skills. Those workers are gonna need to get those skills somewhere. So there's a lot of conversations now in ASEAN and NAPAC about how to enhance kind of old-fashioned TVAT interventions like training, vocational education and training, technical training, how to enable that with new platforms. Like Fay was mentioning that platforms are great tools for connecting workers with work, but also workers with information on how to get re-skilling opportunities, how to get access to education and information, how to get access to information and government services. So discoverability is a big piece of the platform revolution too and that's gonna help workers. And I think there's a lot of different dimensions to this problem and no one is a master of all of these details, but I think governments in the region are trying to figure this out. They're making good faith efforts to understand it. They realized that there's potentially some headwinds that are real threats to the prosperity in the region because I think of a lot of middle-income countries, as Jenny was mentioning have relied over the years on labor-intensive models of development and that could be undermined in some respects. So I think one of the things that economies in the region need to do is focus on restructuring or structural reforms that generate more dynamism locally, that sectors like financial services need to be disciplined in certain ways so that they're more competitive and that there's more capital available to entrepreneurs who'd wanna try new experiments and perhaps generate new jobs using the new technologies that might potentially offset some of the job losses. So there's a lot of discussion about these issues and whether there's going to be great cooperation towards those ends, who knows, but they're on the table, they're not necessarily running away from these issues. And when I say they, I mean, the governments in the region and it's something that we wrestle with because states have their best interests in mind. Oftentimes that's at odds with the need to cooperate, but in this case, I think there's some opportunities, especially in places, when you look at ASEAN, for example, there's a lot of coordination and discussion around these topics in human resource development in particular. So I hope that that's kind of gives a little bit of that. It's hard to answer that question. Yeah, no, well, no, there is a multifaceted issue and it cuts across many things you pointed out. And Carl, to bring it back to technology, everyone in this room is going to get returned to countries that are really now on the front line of this big geopolitical challenge of our time and that is the future of democracy vis-a-vis the rising autocracy or authoritarianism in the world. And that's being played out to varying degrees everywhere right now. And I want to ask you about the role of technology in this, whether it be some of the, you know, on the one hand, the ability to bring people closer together, the ability of social media platforms to inspire revolutions, as we've seen in some parts of the world, yet at the same time redefining what privacy is, the intrusion into people's lives, the long arm of the state that can peer into our lives and technology enhancing that. How do you see technology in this challenge of our time? Do you see it as an ongoing democratising force or one that potentially also enables a greater degree of authoritarianism or control over people's lives? It's a great question. I mean, first of all, if we look at patterns of economic development historically, global knowledge networks have been absolutely critical. So Britain to lead in technology in the 18th century with the first industrial revolution and what made America able to catch up so swiftly was a wave of migrants from Britain to the United States that brought their skills and technological know-how. And for the past 130 years, immigration has been the key driver of growth and prosperity in the United States. What made China catch up so rapidly was the fact that 20 million immigrants lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the United States. And as China opened up, they brought in their skills and expertise and took advantage of new business opportunities that opened up in special economic zones in the South and other places as well. But as we all know, patterns of democratisation have proceeded quite differently in the United States and in China. And more broadly, I mean, if we go back to Arab Spring, yes, there was a sense that the internet and connected devices were a force of democratisation, allowing people to coordinate and giving them a voice even in countries where state media dominated. And at the same time, we do see that countries have been able to use artificial intelligence quite effectively to monitor some parts of their population. China is experimenting with this and even tying a social credit system in certain regions to artificial intelligence-based surveillance. And in addition to that, there is some evidence that that system is being exported to other countries. So I don't think that one can suggest that digital technology is either a force of democratisation or a force of conserving political power. It's a tool that can be employed by different regimes in very different ways. Yes, if we look at Belarus today, the local population managed to deploy digital technology to coordinate in quite effective ways. But the government is now responding to that with additional support and technological expertise from Russia and trying to rein that in. So it's very much a race with the sort of bottom-up vision of the internet as it was originally conceived. And Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the web, is now actually developing a new structure called SOLID in which people restore and process their own data rather than leaving your data at the surface of Facebook. You restore your data yourself and allow it to communicate with the platforms and apps and you want it to. So it's very much dependent on technological choices going forward and no doubt the political institutions that countries have will determine those technological choices not the other way around. Jenny, can I bring you on the question of immigration because what we're seeing here is the people watching online, the people here in the room, is the movement of people. Immigration, I think we've already pointed out today, has enriched countries and the movement of people, these energisers, economies. How do you see that going forward and the ability of countries in a much smaller world to be able to incorporate that and particularly as we start to see the impact of climate change and the forced movement of people as a result of that as well. You know, it's changing the nature of societies, of economies. There's often a drain from certain countries to other countries and what happens to those countries they're behind. How do you see that playing out? Immigration is just such a fraught area for governments and we know that anti-immigration sentiment is one of the things that populist parties harness and will use to sway opinions. So it's one of the real challenges. And immigration has enormous benefits for the countries that are receiving workers, but sometimes it actually, and people, and sometimes it can have costs for the sending countries. So the question is about the benefit balance between the sending countries maybe losing, we're always concerned about brain drains, but to some extent the idea is you bring people here, they experience things as you have done and then they take that knowledge information back with them. And the same way when we bring immigrants in, they're bringing their knowledge, cultures, and it's about the openness of a society to those new learnings that enables them to harness that and to value the diversity that's going on. The challenge is what is that level and what is the, and it's gonna be a social construct. It's the same way with the differences between European countries, the Scandinavian countries who have a very high level of redistribution because that's the way governments are big and they want the government to redistribute a lot of income and to direct it. You have the United States, it has a much lower level of redistribution, but those are again where those societies kind of decide they wanna be through various democratic processes. And the different societies, right, they are one more homogenous or one much more multicultural and that has a different impact on redistribution. That has an enormous impact. So homogeneous societies tend to be a bit more interested in redistribution and you think that, but then you look at Japan which doesn't have such a big redistribution and it's quite homogeneous and Japan is now of course, because they're aging, looking at having to bring in and relaxing and changing their migration rules because suddenly they need people and they need young people. And so the dynamics of migration policy are always changing. It's always a difficult balance to find. What we do know and I was with the Productivity Commission when we did the migration modeling is that it, you know, and we looked at, we tried to understand the impact and there is, we have seen in COVID, there is some impact. If you bring in a big increase in your labor supply, you will see a little dampening of wages across the board, but what we didn't see with some really good research done by Bob Brunig was that it didn't necessarily impact particular groups more than others. Right, if anything, there might have been a slight dampening of wage growth, but by and large, that just happens to be because where we were, we'd had this massive investment boom in the lead up to the mining, you know, during mining construction, massive investment boom, a lot of capital coming in, brought a lot of people in, didn't see any diminution, saw really strong wage growth, but then you had a period of lower investment, but the labor supply is still growing, not too surprisingly, sorry, I'm an economist, you know, I've got to think this way, we didn't see the growth in wages. So, but at the same time, you got lots of other benefits. I mean, where would Australia be without Asian cuisine, without Italian cuisine? I mean, honestly, we'd be absolutely in the, you know, you guys have it in really well. Which we experienced. Yes, that's right, that's right. And coffee, oh my gosh, you know. Can I go to Fay Wongso, because Fay, this raises questions and again, pertinent for people with the Australia Awards, raises questions about the ecosystem that we're talking about in this changing world. What is centralised? Is this a Eurocentric view of the world again? Does this favour the rich countries? How does a country like Indonesia engage with this? And when it comes to something like the Australia Awards, for instance, when people coming to Australia to engage in that, well, we have the technology now for people to do that elsewhere and staying in their home countries. Talk to us a little bit about how Indonesia sees this, the perspective from there and what a global ecosystem looks like. So, I actually started the venture from co-working industry, simply because I saw it from the ecosystem perspective and I thought with the limited resources that I had, you know, going back, you know, had my master's degree, I was just a worker for international organisations, but I was still just an individual. And how I could actually create an aquarium to see, like what kind of platform, what kind of bowl that can make the entrepreneurs more successful. So, kumpul.id, it's all about providing equal access to more entrepreneurs' success and then if you know Indonesia, we are actually number four populations in the world, we are the biggest in Southeast Asia, we are the biggest archipelago in the world, we are the biggest Muslim population in the world and we do have all of the challenges. But then I thought, you know, if you have entrepreneurial mindset, problem is money. So, it's actually providing you with a lot of opportunities and talking about the ecosystem and how we can actually create all of this access. COVID-19 and the pandemic was sort of blessing in these guys, I think for some cases in Indonesia for us also to enhance the capacity building and the growth of entrepreneurship, startups, innovations. Early to 2020, we did sort of like a startup weekend, have you heard of startup weekend? It's a very, you know, like well-known curriculum sort of that done for like a weekend from Friday to Sunday. But then normally it was actually done in a lot of spaces in small scale, like 50 people, maximum 100 people. So, when we started to mobilize all the hubs because I also started to initiate the Co-working Indonesia Association. So, I'm the president of Co-working Indonesia now. It's my fifth year. So, we have all of these networks, you know? Kumbul has more than 100 networks in 34, no, 38 cities. So, we see all of them are like agents of like building the ecosystem, but you need to have the engine. You need to have the programs to measure them. So, with digital platform, at that time we were still a little bit confused what to use. We were using at least six digital channels, but then we could get more than 1,500 registrants from 29 provinces. Indonesia has 34 provinces. So, that's almost all Indonesia. And if you know how big we are and how far one location to the other, this is a huge success. You know, we encourage young people to connect, to form a team, to create solutions, tribute to COVID-19 at that time. So, along the years now until like, you know, almost two years towards the pandemic, a lot of ecosystem players and also us, you know, we've been doing all of these initiatives and working together with ministries, corporations and then the initiatives becomes more impactful in terms of quantity and quality. We can actually bring in specific skills and mentorships that's before only contained or isolated more or less in Java Island or in Jakarta. I mean, Jakarta is really big, you know. Jakarta and its satellite cities are as big as Australia. You know, we are like 25 million people. So, if like one person is tackling one Australian, it's like done. So, but then when we are being national player, sometimes we forget that Jakarta is not Indonesia. So, all of this platform is actually for us, it's enabling us to what I call accelerating the serendipity. It's allowing all of these connections to provide more impactful solutions. And Faye, we'll go to our questions from the audience in just a moment, but just to follow up to that, Faye, because what you're talking about there is a microcosm of something that we may see everywhere, right? I mean, you're talking about a combination of technology, an event like COVID, which accelerates the use of technology to develop new ecosystems. But even for things like the Future of Australia Awards, for instance, will be changed necessarily by the advent of technology and new ways of doing things and developing new ecosystems, wouldn't it? Yes. And actually, when I got my scholarship, it was not called Australia Awards, it was back in 2007. It was called Australia Development Scholarship. And at that time, you need to be either civil servants, researchers at universities, or workers at nonprofit organizations. And then I was actually questioning this because development of a country or economic development or all of this, it's actually not just being pushed from those sectors. This is why my master's is actually Peace and Conflict Studies, which was relevant to what I was doing at that time. But then now, I think Australia Awards also evolves and see the benefit of having a lot of skills developed in the business sectors, in the economic sectors. So now you can actually come from the start-ups sectors, the technology sectors, the corporations, banking, and then you can actually still be part of Australia Awards, which I think is very, very refreshing because when we talked about development of a country or public diplomacy, it's not just from the development sectors. Let's go to some questions now from our audience. Now, is anyone in the room here have a question for us if anyone wants to raise their hand? Okay, yes, it's straight down the front, very quick. Thank you. And it was nice panel discussion and by the way, I'm Lilanath from Sri Lanka. So now we came to Australia in 2020, January. So we are going back to our countries after the COVID third wave in my country. So it's not the country we left in 2020. So it's totally new society. Some technological advancements they are, even in public sector. I belong to the public sector in Sri Lanka. So my question is like, when we hear the keynote address by Rachelle Pillay, she talked about being the architect of your own career. But like if we think as community leaders in our communities back in Sri Lanka, now we have to be architect also our careers as well as others' lives sometimes. We have to take decisions. So my question is like in, when we planning economic and social development in our communities like developing countries, how we can make sure that the human center, the designs of human centered designs are in the heart or co-heart of this technological advancement. So how we can be sure that it is in the planning sector because planning phase actually. So for example, like during the COVID situation, we had in Sri Lanka, we had home learning system. It was newly introduced in our country. But as Jenny mentioned that inequality is a big issue there. Like people who had or student who had nice smartphones got a chance to do the home learnings easily but not the people, yeah. So how can we address these issues? I get what you mean. Let me go to you Jenny on this because it does go to some of the things you raised before and that is about equality and redistribution, planning. I think John mentioned before the ability to plan for this and I'll go to John in just a moment but in terms of equality, redistribution and building this into the planning. Yeah, I think one of the things we need to understand is technology is not neutral, right? Technology always, you know, you need to be thinking about it from a human centered perspective, right? And so one of the things that very briefly, Carl Benjamin, very briefly is data. So if you think about the fourth industrial revolution, we're talking about platforms, technology platforms, we're talking about data that is the exchange of data that underpins all of these things. And so as soon as we start thinking about those things and the way policies are made and the way data is transmitted is who has access to those platforms? Whose data is being used? How is it being shared? Who's got control over it? And those are all things that immediately means that technology is not neutral. And so you really need to be, and I'm hoping many of you will not sort of go, even if you go into business and you start your own businesses, you still should be influencing the shape of policy in your country, regulatory policy to try and make sure that technology that's being adopted, the standards that are being put in place are as human centred and is enabling for everybody else as possible. So part of that is anti-monopoly type stuff. We're worried about the Facebooks and the control and the like, but a lot of it is much smaller. It's around, who has control over their data? And ensuring that people do, and it's interesting, I can't remember whether it was John or Carl mentioned that Tim Berners-Lee is developing, I think one of the Carl, sort of a way of having your own data wallet that belongs to you. Those are the kinds of things that are really important. So when we're thinking about the skills that you need to take forward in whether you're in the private sector, whether you're in the public sector, whether you're in the not-for-profit sector, that set of skills is very much about thinking about technology and what is it doing for people? And there's actually, Genevieve Bell recently gave a talk on this. She's a professor at A&U that heads up something called the 3AI Institute. And it's cybernetics, and cybernetics has been around a long time, but all those feedback loops, and the fact that technology isn't neutral, and we need to understand those complex system feedback loops, whether whenever we're choosing what technology to use, when we're developing technology, we need to be thinking about who's gonna use it, how can it be misused as well? And so the set of skills you need to do that come not just, as I said before with coding, they come with thinking, the steps before you get down to code the thing that makes it work. And that's a set of skills that you can bring multiple disciplines to bear on doing that well. So it's not just whether you're a computer scientist, it's actually whether you're an economist, whether you're an engineer, whether you're a social scientist. You know a lot about the systems that you know. So you've been studying particular systems really, whether they're systems of engineering, whether they're systems of economics, whether they're systems of the way health systems are delivered, the human body works, and all that interacts with technology. And that's all about what we're bringing. So it's really up to the young people who kind of get that to make sure that the old digital dinosaurs can bring them along and say, hey, recognize what the impacts of these are. And that's what we've got to work on. And guess what? Me sitting here by myself can't do it. I need to get a bunch of other people in the room who know how to think about these things, who can also give me their perspectives because it's bringing those people together that actually label you to use technology far more effectively. So that's not quite getting to the redistribution questions, but it's very important component of this fourth industrial revolution, making sure it's a positive thing for the globe and for people as opposed to a negative thing. We're getting questions coming in. I'll group these together and put them to various members of the panel. The first one is, what is the importance of universal basic income? I was thinking about that myself actually. It's a very good question. In accelerating the fourth industrial revolution and dealing with those people, I suppose, if you all are going to be left behind in this, there's a question directly to Faye Wong. So looking for a job actually, Faye, interested in joining Kumpul after my studies, how can I become part of that and what qualifications are looking for? I'll come to you in a minute on that. And the last one here is, can we predict what the skills of the future will be and will it be more focused on particular sectors? John, can I go to you on the importance of universal basic income? What role do you see that playing, if any? Well, I'm not a real expert on the very specific thing that is UPI, but I'll say this, social protection schemes of some kind are really important. And they're important for a couple of reasons, but one, we really need a kind of social safety net to allow workers the time they need to make the transition and to manage this process of change. So a good social protection scheme is absolutely critical. I'd say that because we really don't know, as I said at the beginning, what's coming, but I can talk, I think there's some really interesting analogies coming from California where I am currently in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Early in the history of the 20th century, who we very wisely, I'm being sarcastic, removed all of the public transportation infrastructure for rails, for light rail in favor of freeways. And there wasn't a lot of dialogue over this policy decision. It just happened, a lot of elites influenced that process without a lot of input from the public. And we ended up with gridlock in many of our big urban cities. I think if you look, there's, there are many analogies, but if you look at social media platforms, for example, without much input from the public, we decided to completely throw out our old information architecture and the way we share information in favor of social media platforms. And now we have some problems that we didn't expect, misinformation, disinformation, spreading all over the world, making people fearful of vaccines who had never even considered being afraid of vaccines before. So now we're facing a wave of change on the future of work front. And so I think it's really important for communities to have a say in these changes and to have a dialogue stakeholders need to be involved because of the disruption in the unintended consequences. And so that kind of leaks back to this idea of UBI or social protection scheme of some kind. We need some kind of mechanism to manage and moderate the impact of some of these changes. That's not to say we give people free money in perpetuity. At least that's not what I think we should do. But we need to smooth the process of transition from one job to the next to allow people the time they need to adapt to these changes to many of which, as we said at the very beginning, we can't anticipate or know at this point. So I think it's really important. Cal, what are the skills of the future do you think? Well, I do think that we can infer something from looking at what computers do well and what they can't do that well. And if you look historically, computerization is largely being confined to routine rule-based activities that we can easily specify in computer code and that therefore can be readily automated. What we're seeing now with advanced machine learning though, is that we don't necessarily any longer need a programmer to specify what the technology should do at any given contingency. So to take an example, if you had the misfortune of having to spend some time as a hospital during the pandemic, you may have encountered the cubot which delivers food and medicine within some hospitals. If you happen to walk in front of the robot, it simply stops. And that's quite easy to program because it's navigated structured environment. And so it's quite easy for a programmer to predict type of situations it would encounter. If you drive a car in Russia or city traffic, on the other hand, there are numerous situations that you can encounter. And it's just completely impossible for a computer programmer to be able to foresee and specify in computer code what the car should do at every given contingency. There are just so many different tail of events. So the way we try to solve this problem is by collecting a lot of data on human drivers, driving patterns in city traffic to predict what the human driver would have done in any given situation and automate it that way around. And that means that the potential scope of automation is expanding very rapidly into a lot of unexpected domains which are non-routine. That said, though, there are still several engineering bottlenecks to automation. I mentioned one in the beginning, which relates to complex social interactions. And now the one has to do with the creative tasks. So for most machine learning, you need to either have some sort of label data or you can use free enforcement learning if you're able to specify quite clearly what the objective is. When it comes to creative tasks, though, it's quite hard to specify that objective, right? For a computer to win at the game, you simply specify a maximized game score. What do you maximize if you want a computer to perform well in arts? It's much less straightforward. And in a similar fashion, when it comes to navigating complex environment and unstructured type of work, Robo still do very poorly in navigating those type of environments. There's no general cleaner that is capable of identifying all the objects in your home, yet picking them up and manipulating them. So there's a variety of tasks where humans still hold a comparative advantage. And they're also broadly speaking in the skills that are still going to be very relevant in the future. Yeah. Faye, the question to you was, how can you get a job? What skills are you looking for? There's a follow up, Faye. I'll put to you as well right now. And that is that in your biography, you wrote one of your earlier limitations for due to ethnicity and being a minority. And this is from someone here who says that being a woman from more conservative Eastern Indonesia, as well as being middle class, Chinese, Indo, how do you break through that? So can you look at the question first of all, what does it take to get a job with Gumball? But also how you've personally developed your career and dealing with some of the obstacles that you've had to overcome. So maybe I also want to add to the future of work. I mean, that might add up to Gumball. I mean, I would love to get all the talents out there. But then I think right now, the way we take a look at talents is not at all. Again, diplomas, it's more about portfolios and your network. It's really about your network is your net worth. And then that's actually how I navigate through the jungle of like ecosystem, wherever, you know. And I think the future of work is the soft power, what we call the soft power. When the industrial revolutions, when digital background can actually do something like everything big scale, aggregating a lot of things, you know, market channels, money, everything. The real value is actually what we call the soft power. It's about content. It's about culture. It's about identity and it's about unique values. One example that I sometimes tell the story is actually Korea, South Korea. So almost 20 years ago, they realized that the income of Jurassic Park, you know, the box office was almost equal to 1.5 million sales of Hyundai cars. So then they realized how much content worth. Then after that, you know, consciously they gathered all the investment, the strategy and how they can actually push forward the soft power to monetize this, you know. So I think all of that, sorry, what's that? And they win an Academy Award. So now look where we are, you know, they changed the concept of beauty, skincare, songs, movie, you know, there's a certain formula in all of this Korean drama that people actually learn and adopt, you know. So you can basically really put forward everything that you got out there and then utilizing all the technology, but why they are so special? Why they are on the global map now? Because they have this soft power. So I think that's actually the future. Currently, the type of jobs that before 20 years ago, when I started doing my bachelor degree or my master's degree are the things that our parents would say that will not earn you money, you know, are actually the ones that can make you billionaires right now. So the world is changed like that. So before being a surgeon is being a rock star, but then later on, you know, being a YouTuber is the rock star. So I think when we talked about the future of work, it's again, things that we've repeated, you know, like a couple of times in this session. And the other question was you personally overcoming whatever obstacles you may have faced. How did you do that? First of all, it's not just being minority and also women in this world, because co-working, if you want to know that it's also sort of like a property world. So then in co-working industry, the majority are actually also men. So we have the comedy of the national associations. Initially, there were like maybe 20 people and then only three were women, but then all in top positions. So I think Indonesia is one of the largest, how you call it, successful democratic nations with like, I mean, we empower a lot of women. Educations are open to women. And I never really see myself as women or men. It's actually just a skill set, a vision, a personality. And this isn't that. And I think if you position yourself like that, people will start seeing you like that, you know? So you're not actually being put in a box of labeled. But again, your network is your network. Start making friends with, I'm not saying like people in power. I didn't have friends in power at that time because we were the only one who started from grassroots level, from community level. A lot of people building the ecosystem pipelines when they have the money, you know, like the venture capital, people who actually want to invest and then they start building the pipelines. We were actually doing this like from people like on the ground, 300 locations in 45 cities and districts across Indonesia. And then from there on, to see like what's actually the real pain of entrepreneurs. I truly believe if you work based on what you want to achieve, people will see the value and people will want to join that vision. A few more minutes left of our Q&A. There's a few questions here. I'll put a couple of these together. In a technologically evolving world, why focus on jobs rather than diverting resources to entrepreneurial opportunities? So basically saying, why don't we focus on entrepreneurial stuff rather than just focusing on jobs? There's one related to that as well that automation is usually desired when it can reduce costs significantly. Is there a connection that technology and automation can actually increase wages? And then there's a question here about whether tech companies are in fact more powerful than governments now going forward. Let me put the question of automation increasing wages and focusing on entrepreneurship rather than just jobs to you, Jenny. Well, it's highly complementary. So the real point about using technology wisely is using technology to enhance productivity. And so your human input and your technology input produce a better outcome. So you think about hospitals, taking the notes down electronically so the nurses and doctors can share them rather than having scrawled on the back of the bed type thing. This is where getting technology to work properly and making sure it's properly tested before you put it into play is really important. So normally what you're doing is using technology to enhance the productivity of workers. And the real challenge is, I mean we've got self-checkout in the supermarket. Some people love it. Some people like to go in the, they prefer to go with somebody putting it through. But what we've got to do is look for one of the jobs that the people who are no longer needed scanning the items in the supermarket going to do. And the idea is if you improve productivity enough, then you've got a lot more kind of output in economy that can then be shared, right? And so whether you've got a government redistributing that by taxing it. So taxing the sort of the success stories and then redistributing that through spending more money on education. And the things we really value, because if you think about the things that we value as a society, we value education, we value healthcare, we value social commitment, we value entertainment. And now, I mean, you know, when I was growing up, there was no such thing as getting your nails done. At least in working class district I grew up. You know, your haircut was done by your mum and with a bowl usually sitting on your head. But, you know, nowadays I walk into the mall and there is two nail places. There's this thing called, I can't remember exactly, but eyebrow spreading. Spreading? Don't even know what it is. But there's all these services that were there before, right? And so that's because our productivity is so much higher that we can afford to release labor to do a bunch of other stuff that we value. And so what matters there is that recycling of that income of productivity. So technology and the labor have to be complementary. And that's what we're looking for. And so it might not be complementary in the sense that your supermarket checkout person has to get a different kind of job, but they may be really good at providing massages, you know? And we love massages, you know? And that's a great service for people. So, you know, so this is what's going to happen. We're going to see that evolution of the labor market. It won't happen super fast. When we look back in 20 years time, it'll look like it happened super fast, but when we're actually experiencing it won't seem that fast. The challenge is we still got an education system in many places that are producing people with this idea of I go in as a junior lawyer and I end up as a senior lawyer. And the real problem is that that's where technology is replacing a lot of people. So it's in those entry level sort of professional jobs that can be kind of much more kind of automated. And so the challenge is making sure talented people get the opportunity to what I call rise up the column as opposed to the normal pyramid that kind of eats away and you get the most talented people get to the top eventually. So that's our challenge is working out how we reshape education so that we have people with a bunch of skills across a much broader set of things that allow them perhaps to engage in entrepreneurial activities as well as working for other entrepreneurs. Carl, we're almost out of time, but if I could ask you in a minute to get to that question. Technology, companies more powerful than governments in some respects now. I think it very much depends on how you measure power. So tech companies don't have a military. So they don't have a lot of hard power in that regard. It's true that the market cap of companies is extraordinarily high and revenues do exceed the GDP of some countries. And they're able to shift revenues across borders. And in that sense, they're more flexible than countries as well. But look, in the end of the day, it's countries that come together and write the rules and regulations. And it's up to societies to make sure that the process of writing those rules and regulations is not being captured by companies that are trying to bend the rules to their own benefit. So if you look historically, yes, there was a gilded age in the United States. Some people are speaking about the gilded age in China today. And usually those periods of times have seen society rising up and governments trying to rein in the political clout of business. So the balance of power tends to swing throughout history. And I think it's about to swing back towards governments and the trust policy is becoming more vigorous in the United States and Europe and China as well. Thank you very much. We had so many questions. We could have been here for another hour, but please thank our panel, John Ka, Jenny Gordon, Karl Frey and Frey Wong. So thank you all so much. Thank you Jenny. Thank you.