The ICT is an exciting industry to be a part of. Once, major changes came along every few years but these days advancements are occurring at such a rapid pace that big shifts in the industry are occurring on a yearly basis. However, recent research suggests that Australian young people are users of, but not workers in, technology.
With anticipated tech releases occurring almost monthly, this year alone we’ve seen the release of VR gaming headsets, updated fitness trackers, new iPhones and Samsung’s (2016’s most anticipated tech releases can be found here)– young people are immersed in technology but not choosing it as a career.
According to a TAFE NSW research report, demand for ICT workers is forecast to increase by around 70,000 workers by the year 2020 but participation in training programs sees a declining trend. The report also highlighted the well-known trend that women are underrepresented in the industry; there is a 28% representation of women in the ICT workforce, where broadly women represent 44% of the professional industries workforce.
But there’s good news too.
The plethora of reports highlighting this declining trend has inspired action to engage young people to ignite their passion for the industry. On the Aussie Educator website there are 20 technology competitions for 2016 listed, second in number only to science competitions. Competitions like the First Tech Challenge Australia supported by Macquarie University is designed for high school students to compete in teams to build and program robots. The National Computer Science School Challenge from the University of Sydney encourages both coders and none coders to compete by teaching those with no or little experience to code along the way.
Recently, Karen Drewitt, General Manager at The Missing Link was invited to be a judge at SAP’s Young ICT Explorers competition. The competition aims to engage young people with technology and encourages young people to ignite their imaginations and bring their original ideas to fruition. The competition is open to Australian students in years 3 – 12. Students can enter as an individual or as a team, the latter being encouraged. The students compete around Australia and pitch their technology idea to a panel of judges.
Judging started in Melbourne on the 6th of August and will conclude in Adelaide on the 24th of September. You can learn about the incredible ideas the students came up with and read about the results here.
CompTIA is passionate about attracting diverse talent to ICT. They recently launched their Dream IT program in Australia encouraging females into the industry. In late August they realised a video You Have a Future in IT featuring Alana Reynard, Senior Infrastructure Architect at The Missing Link. You can read more about CompTIA and their initiatives at https://www.comptia.org/
The future
Students and young people, especially females, should be encouraged into the ICT industry. A diverse pool of minds is needed to keep ideas original and to keep pace of advancement which is improving our lives every day.To see what young minds of the future are imaging, visit the gallery from the Young ICT Explorers.
