The Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) and an American multinational technology corporation announced a partnership to help local partners that offer software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions accelerate their international growth.
The Go Global programme will commence in September 2022 and will focus on an exclusive cohort of Australian software businesses from the tech firm’s Australia SaaS partner network, helping them to find success in the United States market.
The programme will be provided at no cost to participants and support their expansion in the following ways:
The Chief Partner Officer at the tech giant’s Australia and New Zealand arm noted that the programme comes at a time when the company’s 9,000 Australian partners are looking for new ways to expand their operations and attract more customers. The firm is thrilled to invest in and support its SaaS partners with high growth potential alongside Austrade, she said.
The Go Global programme will help them bring products and services to the world, build their business and scale geographically in a fiercely competitive marketplace. She added that the economic and trading relationship between Australia and the US is recognised as one of the closest, broadest and mutually compatible relationships in the world. The two nations share similar economic and regulatory settings and know their partners have a desire to enter the US market.
The Chief Executive Officer of Austrade stated that Austrade is excited to collaborate with the tech giant to connect some of the most promising Australian SaaS scaleups into the US market and ensure they are fully equipped to succeed on the global stage.
Landing Pads provide market-ready Australian technology businesses with access to some of the world’s most renowned innovation hubs including San Francisco, New York, Tel Aviv, Shanghai, London and Singapore, he added.
Following the completion of the programme in September, the tech company and Austrade intend to expand the programme to other international markets, leveraging Austrade’s established international Landing Pad network.
About Austrade’s Landing Pads
Landing Pads are part of Austrade’s global service offer for Australian scaleups. The programme provides market-ready scaleups with an operational base and customised support for their overseas expansion goals. Scaleups participate in an immersive programme in one of Austrade’s five Landing Pad cities: Singapore, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Berlin and Shanghai.
Landing Pad participants can tap into Austrade’s business and investor networks to meet potential customers (including multinationals), investors and strategic partners. An Austrade Landing Pad Manager will provide clients with one-on-one business development assistance, including:
Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), a pharmaceutical company and a healthcare venture capital firm have signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MoU) to support the collaboration and development of biomedicine to enhance Hong Kong’s status as an international I&T hub.
HKSTP has been in close discussion with the two firms for an in-depth collaboration since early this year and subsequently reached a consensus on the MoU terms. The MOU signing ceremony was hosted during the visit of representatives from the pharmaceutical company to the Science Park in August.
The partnership between the three parties in the MoU means a collective effort to co-incubate and co-invest in start-up ventures, enhance collaboration in clinical trials and provide support to contract research organisations (CRO) and contract development manufacturing organisations (CDMO) in areas including autoimmune diseases, anti-ageing, gene and cell therapy, and messenger RNA (mRNA) / small interfering RNA (siRNA).
A fund will also be set up with HKSTP to support collaboration across drug discovery, innovation treatment and other clinical aspects to accelerate the incubation and translation of basic biomedical research in Hong Kong, advancing the city’s mission to be an international I&T hub.
The CEO of HKSTP stated that the Park is will seize the opportunities under the 14th Five-Year Plan and the Greater Bay Area to reinforce collaboration with different sectors. The collaboration with the two industry partners will amplify Hong Kong’s R&D strengths and start a new chapter in the city’s biomedical technology development.
With Hong Kong being Asia’s largest and the world’s second-largest biotech fundraising hub, Hong Kong’s unique platform and advantages in research capability and clinical resources will continue to be leveraged to accelerate technologies and deliver world-class biotech innovation for the city, he added.
The President and Executive Director of the pharmaceutical company stated that building on the exceptional biomedical foundations and R&D capabilities of Hong Kong, the three parties will leverage their collective advantages and vast resources to collaborate in areas such as incubation and translation of research projects, clinical trials, CRO platforms and provide support to the industry.
He noted that by forming an ‘Innovation Alliance’ with the government sector, tertiary education institutions, the Science Park, pharmaceutical companies and capital markets, the ecosystem will be scaled up with even more effective incubation and translation of basic biomedical research in Hong Kong.
The President of the venture capital firm noted that the company’s vision of Shanghai HealthCare Capital is to build a biomedical innovation investment platform that is based in Shanghai and Hong Kong, connecting with the Yangtze River Delta, while exploring the international market.
He added that the strategic cooperation between the three parties will effectively combine their strengths and develop a translational ecosystem for early R&D products with the government sector, tertiary education institutions, the Science Park, capital markets and corporations, driving state-of-the-art biotechnologies from Shanghai and Hong Kong to the global market.
The global biotechnology market was valued at US$852.88 billion in 2020 and is expected to increase to approximately US$3.44 trillion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 17.83% during the forecast period.
Key factors driving the market include favourable government policies, the roll-out of new and advanced products, robust investment in the biotechnology sector, and rising demand for funding through alliance investment in start-up biotechnology companies for adopting new and advanced products are contributing to market growth.
A multidisciplinary team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers led by Iddo Drori, a lecturer in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), has used a neural network model to solve university-level math problems at a human level in a matter of seconds.
“It will help students improve, and it will help teachers create new content, and it could help increase the level of difficulty in some courses. It also allows us to build a graph of questions and courses, which helps us understand the relationship between courses and their pre-requisites, not just by historically contemplating them, but based on data,” Iddo explained, also an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s Department of Computer Science.
Additionally, the model automatically explains solutions and rapidly generates new math problems for university-level courses. When the researchers presented these machine-generated questions to university students, the students were unable to distinguish whether the questions were created by a human or an algorithm.
This approach might be used to simplify the creation of course content, which would be particularly beneficial for big residential courses and massive open online courses (MOOCs) with thousands of students. The technology might also be used as an automated tutor that demonstrates to students how to solve basic math problems.
In the past, researchers employed a neural network, such as GPT-3, that was merely pretrained on the text like it was shown millions of examples of text to learn the patterns of natural language. This time, they employed a neural network that was trained on the text and “tuned” on code.
A machine learning model can perform better by using this network, known as Codex, which is effectively an additional pre-training procedure.
The model was exposed to millions of code examples from internet repositories. As the training data for this model contained millions of natural language words and millions of lines of code, it learns the relationships between text and code.
The machine-generated questions were evaluated by showing them to university students. The researchers assigned students 10 problems from each undergraduate math course in random order; five questions were prepared by people and the remaining five were generated by a computer.
Students were unable to discern whether the machine-generated questions were produced by an algorithm or a human, and they scored the difficulty level and course-appropriateness of questions generated by humans and machines similarly.
Researchers emphasised that this effort is not meant to take the place of actual teachers. They claim that although automation has reached 80 per cent accuracy, it will never reach 100 per cent. Every time someone figures something out, someone else will pose a more challenging problem.
Simply this work opens the door for people to begin using machine learning to answer ever-harder questions, and academics are optimistic that it will have a significant impact on higher education.
The team has expanded the work to handle math proofs because of the approach’s effectiveness, although there are several limits they intend to address. Due to computational complexity, the model is currently unable to answer questions with a visual component or resolve computationally intractable issues.
The model is being scaled up to hundreds of courses in addition to these obstacles. They will produce more data with those hundreds of courses, which they may use to improve automation and offer perceptions into course design and curricula.
An Educational Technology expert at CQUniversity has been named amongst Queensland’s brightest minds in education research and granted over AU$ 76 000 for an upcoming digital safety project. He was one of 14 successful applicants to receive a Queensland Government Education Horizon grant to respond to modern challenges in education and build solutions that will benefit Queenslanders for generations to come.
The project focuses on digital safety in schools and includes holistic digital citizenship, incorporating aspects of literacy, well-being, relationships and awareness of technology habits.
He noted that the team anticipates that, through this project, a greater understanding of how kids interact online for learning will be gained. This will inform a set of workshops designed as professional development for educators and we will deliver this back to Queensland schools.
The professor stated that, since COVID-19, how students use the online space has changed significantly. However, there has, thus far, been little empirical evidence of their current usage and how it relates to safety needs. Thus, this project focuses on the perspectives of Year 6 to 8 students, who are newly independent internet users, to identify the factors that enable or challenge their ability to use technology in empowering ways for learning.
By identifying these complex and often less visible aspects of students’ technology engagement and decision-making, our findings will contribute to a holistic and up-to-date framework of a digital safety culture, as well as a professional learning package that informs staff and student engagement for learning, and impacts new policy and practices, the Professor said.
The project is expected to run over six months and Assoc Prof Cowling will collaborate with CQUniversity adjunct academics Dr Kwong Nui Sim and Dr Joanne Orlando (Auckland University of Technology and Western Sydney University respectively).
Education Minister Grace Grace said the Education Horizon grants were more than just funding to support quality research, they were an investment in students’ futures.
Research projects like these cover a wide range of education matters, from health and wellbeing, to leadership, to learning in a rapidly changing modern world.
The Queensland government supports vital research
The Queensland Education Department’s Education Horizon research grant scheme funds high-quality local research that aligns with the government’s priorities and the department’s priority research themes. Queensland researchers with a Queensland-based sponsor organisation are eligible to apply at the time of invitation to their university’s vice-chancellor office. Limitations may be placed on the number of applications per university.
Some of Queensland’s brightest minds in education research have been granted a combined $1 million in the Queensland Government’s funding to respond to modern challenges in education and build solutions that will benefit Queenslanders for generations to come.
The region’s Education Minister recently announced the 14 successful projects to receive Education Horizon grants for high-quality early childhood and school education research for 2022 – 10 of which are led by women. She noted that the Education Horizon grants are more than just funding to support quality research, they are an investment in students’ futures.
The selected research projects cover a wide range of education matters, from health and wellbeing, to leadership, to learning in a rapidly changing modern world. Each of the 14 projects were selected by a departmental panel from a total of 42 applicants, with the successful projects to be delivered over six months.
The Minister said the Education Horizon grants were first launched in 2016, with this the fifth grant round to be awarded.
The Science and Technology Academic and Research-Based Openly Operated Kiosks or STARBOOKS of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) have arrived on the island of San Miguel in Tabaco, Albay, providing easy access to S&T learning.
STARBOOKS is the country’s first digital science library, created by the Science and Technology Information Institute (DOST-STII). It is a stand-alone information source intended for those who have limited or no access to S&T information resources.
The project’s goal is to provide Science, Technology, and Innovation (ST&I) content to geographically isolated schools and communities across the country. STARBOOKS contains many digitized S&T resources in various formats such as text and video or audio organised in specially designed “pods” with an easy-to-use interface.
STARBOOKS, as SMNHS teacher John Darnell Balbastro put it, is “one way of elevating the scientific and technological literacy” of their students. Its wide range of digitised S&T resources in various formats will “intensify the curiosity among our young learners,” and its offline access will address the lack of S&T learning resources in San Miguel.
Through this programme, DOST Region V, in collaboration with its dedicated Provincial S&T Centres and implementers, will continue to promote and empower S&T knowledge and education.
Meanwhile, Jamaica Pangasinan, Senior Science Research Specialist at the Space Mission Control and Operations Division (SMCOD) of the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), said that she was impressed by the level of environmental and social awareness of the incoming senior high school students, which was shown in their work at the “LIFT OFF: PhilSA Space Science Camp 2022.”
She said that the mission goals showed how eager the students were to solve the problems and threats facing the environment right now.
Fourteen science high schools from the 16 divisions of Metro Manila chosen by the Department of Education (DepEd) to attend the camp presented their space missions. Each team had five (5) minutes to talk about their satellite’s mission, its most important technical features, and why it was important.
The students came up with a wide range of missions, from observing Earth to keeping an eye on space junk to sending probes to other planets.
Only two missions were better than the rest. These are the Monitoring Illegal Mining Activities in Remote Areas (MIMA) by Bianca Louise B. Cruz and Oscar A. Araja II of the City of Mandaluyong Science High School, and the Venus Seismic Activity Monitoring Satellite (V-SAMS) by Peter James Lyon and Ysabela Juliana Bernardo of the Caloocan City Science High School.
The students who work on MIMA said that the goal of their satellite mission is to protect the environment and make sure that mining laws and rules are followed better in the country. Based on their plan, MIMA would be a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite that could see through clouds to spot changes in areas where mining could be happening. It would take pictures with the help of optical imagers.
The goal of V-SAMS, on the other hand, would be to learn more about Venus, which is like Earth’s twin, and especially about its earthquakes. To do this, V-SAMS would use infrared imaging to track the surface temperature of Venus’s volcanoes, figure out which ones will erupt, and find other volcanoes that are still active on the planet.
It would also have an interferometric SAR (InSAR) to look for changes on Venus’s surface and signs of earthquakes. V-SAMS would also have an optical payload that would let it take high-resolution pictures.
The Ministry of Communication and Informatics together with the Communication and Information Office of East Java Province, and the Indonesian Anti-Defamation Society (MAFINDO) recently held a Digital Literacy Week which aimed to increase the digital literacy capacity of the local communities and the millennials so that they can utilise the digital technology effectively and responsibly.
There is a pressing need for digital literacy since the pace of technological advancement continues to outpace the skills of the human workforce. To keep up with the pace of technology advancements, HR development needs to accelerate.
– Hudiyono, Head, Communications and Information Technology, East Java Province
The Digital Literacy Week is one part of the National Digital Literacy Programme entitled Indonesia Makin Cakap Digital which raises four pillars of digital literacy, namely Digital Ethics, Digital Capability, Digital Security, and Digital Culture. This activity aims to reach 50 million people by 2024.
Digital literacy has been promoted since 2017 by the Ministry of Communications and Informatics but because of the pandemic, digital literacy programmes became part of President Jokowi’s vision and mission efforts regarding the development of digital human resources.
With this, millennials or the younger generation are referred to as one of the potential generations in the current era of technological disruption.
Moreover, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics has created digital literacy modules such as the digital security module on fundamental personal digital privacy and security practices; hoax resistance class; personal branding class; and creator content class.
The digital literacy discussion assembly, in which participants from millennial groups and local communities explored how to become more digitally literate using the four pillars of digital literacy, was attended by more than 350 individuals.
Meanwhile, according to the Director General of Information and Public Communication of the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, Usman Kansong, the development of digital skills for MSMEs is needed to be able to promote their products in the online market (e-commerce). In addition, with digital skills, MSMEs are expected to be able to produce new technology or applications that can be used by other similar business actors.
The agency also involves scholars, priests and the younger generation to encourage the productive use of digital space. Director General Usman emphasised that the Ministry continues to aid MSMEs in actively selling on digital platforms.
After the recently held 3rd Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) Meeting of the G20 Presidency, the Minister of Communication and Information, Johnny G. Plate visited the MSME exhibition booth in West Manggarai Regency.
The Minister noticed the product produced and interacted with West Manggarai MSME entrepreneurs and appreciated the process of agricultural products and packaging with good, attractive designs and the “Proudly Made Indonesia” logo.
The Minister also provides input so that MSME entrepreneurs can narrate their products well and are able to take advantage of technological advances to market MSME products and transact with buyers such as barcode technology.
Local entrepreneurs hope that the MSME digitisation process will be able to elevate the West Manggarai MSMEs to compete at national and international levels.
The visit of Minister Johnny is a matter of pride for them, and they hope that the process of digitising MSMEs will be able to elevate West Manggarai MSMEs to international markets, which will lead to improving the economy of MSME entrepreneurs.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop the use of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data from SLA’s Singapore Satellite Reference Network (SiReNT) to help NEA better monitor island-wide atmospheric moisture. The goal of the five-year partnership is to help Singapore with weather monitoring by giving it more data and making it easier to do exploratory studies for weather forecasting.
“The collaboration between NEA and SLA highlights our commitment to achieve synergies and tap on enablers across the public sector. This partnership provides a platform for NEA to utilise SLA’s expertise in GNSS data collection and processing, enabling NEA to explore non-traditional methods to enhance our weather monitoring and forecasting capabilities,” says Luke Goh, CEO, NEA.
On the other hand, Colin Low, CEO of SLA, said that SLA’s partnership with NEA is a part of its ongoing efforts to collaborate with parties from the public and commercial sectors to open up new applications for SiReNT and its other geospatial products.
The SLA believed combining the knowledge of multiple parties might lead to more innovation and the discovery of workable solutions that could be advantageous to Singapore and the industries.
Colin continued by saying that they are eager to collaborate with NEA to research the unique uses of SiReNT data for improved weather monitoring and research projects on weather forecasting and climate change. The many experiences that were gathered and shared during this partnership will serve as a foundation for upcoming developments in this area.
The production of accurate weather forecasts, climate monitoring, and timely warnings of dangerous weather events all depend on meteorological measurements. The Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS) routinely gathers a variety of observational data from ground-based and aircraft sensors, such as temperature, wind, and moisture.
To measure these weather components at various altitudes of the atmosphere, sensors linked to a weather balloon are routinely launched twice a day at MSS’ Upper Air Observatory (UAO). To enhance the sounding data from the weather balloon, MSS erected a GNSS reference station at UAO in 2019.
This station will provide continuous estimates of moisture in an atmospheric column known as the integrated precipitable water vapour.
In accordance with the MOU, SiReNT will incorporate MSS’s GNSS station, giving MSS access to continuous, almost real-time atmospheric moisture readings for the entire island. By supplying greater resolution and more frequent observation data, this non-conventional moisture data will complement MSS’s current observation network data and enable research into possible uses for weather forecasting.
The partnership will also help SLA’s SiReNT station network, which now consists of nine reference stations dispersed throughout Singapore, grow. The network will grow to 12 stations with more data receivable with the installation of NEA’s GNSS base receiver station at UAO that will be integrated into SiReNT and two anticipated additional coastal SiReNT reference stations. The SiReNT system can create precise positioning data with an accuracy of up to 3 cm and correct positional inaccuracies in GNSS signals.
The SiReNT technology fosters innovation across a range of sectors, including autonomous driving, logistics and automation in the building industry, and monitoring of changes in Singapore’s land height and sea level.
The addition of stations by the end of 2022 will further increase the stability of the services and applications SiReNT now supports in several important industries. It can also be used in novel ways for scientific research on climate change.
Several domestic banks in Vietnam have 90% of their transactions conducted on digital platforms, surpassing the target of 70% set for 2025. Half of the country’s banking services are expected to be digitalised and 70% of transactions will be carried out online by 2025.
The Vietnamese Prime Minister, Pham Minh Chinh, recently stated that the banking sector has played a significant role in national digital transformation by deploying products and services for people and businesses. He urged the sector to further reform its management methods towards modernity and transparency and diversify and improve the quality of its products and services to curb money laundering.
Addressing an event called, “Digital Transformation Day of the Banking Sector” Chinh explained that the sector should work to understand more about the demands of people, businesses, and credit institutions to devise suitable legal documents, facilitating the application of digital technologies in banking services.
He asked the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to continue its close coordination with ministries and agencies to formulate a decree on cashless payments and submit it to the government. Common infrastructure such as payment and credit information infrastructure should be promoted. He said suggested stronger connectivity between banks and credit organisations.
Chinh also requested the sector ensure cybersecurity and safety in digital transformation, given the rise of high-tech crime. The sector should raise public awareness about the benefits of digital transformation, enhance personnel training capabilities, and boost international cooperation in digital transformation.
The Prime Minister also attended an exhibition showcasing products and services that promote the digital transformation of the banking sector. Chinh had a working session with representatives from the SBV and commercial banks. He congratulated the sector on its effective operations amid a host of difficulties, especially those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He suggested the sector further cut interest rates to support businesses and actively engage in the state’s policies, particularly housing credit for workers and low-income earners. Participants attributed the developments of banks to supportive policies adopted by the state, the management of the government, and stability in the country.
Vietnam’s financial technology market could grow to US$ 18 billion by 2024. The country is a leader among ASEAN members in terms of the volume of financing for fintech, second only to Singapore. Over 93% of all venture investments in the country are directed at e-wallets and the e-money segment. The total number of fintech companies has grown to 97 since 2016, an 84.5% increase. However, the number of newly-launched start-ups each year decreased from 11 to 2.
As OpenGov Asia reported, the market features high competitiveness and a high entry bar. Transaction volume has seen a 152.8% growth since 2016, with 29.5 million new fintech users. As a result, every second Vietnamese citizen uses at least one fintech service. Demand for digital services (transactions, payments, and wallets) in the country is high. According to industry analysts, Vietnam’s fintech sector is young and promising. The market valuation has increased from US$ 0.7 billion to US$ 4.5 billion since 2016.
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