LESSONS FROM WEEK 1
In week one, a simple yet powerful theme emerged – people as the purpose for digitisation.
The Digital Economy
NSW Digital Service Delivery Minister Victor Dominello kicked us off talking about the power of listening to real-time feedback. Turned out he’d hit on a theme that’s grown stronger with each session - good digitisation is about enabling better human decision-making.
A couple of his comments: “I'm sure we're going to create some new laws in relation to digital identity, for example, but most of the impediments are around culture.” He followed up with a question that speaks to a powerful purpose for bringing people along that journey: “The single unit of our democracy is the individual in a digital world. How do we empower that individual in the data age, essentially, where we give them more control of their personal information, their data?”
The Regulators
ASIC’s Executive Director, Markets Greg Yanco followed with an example of how the corporate regulator was using AI - to look for links between trades ahead of price-sensitive announcements, and people with access to that information: “(Using AI) has meant that we can have analysts focusing on the really hard core bits of a potential insider trading matter, rather than running around gathering the raw data,” he said.
Switching gears, we were thrilled to have ACCC Chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb join us to expand on the commission’s just-released 5th Digital Platforms Inquiry report. She explained that a strong digital ecosystem is the objective behind the report’s proposal to shift digital competition regulation from case-by-case enforcement to a code-of-conduct system: “The code process is to enable proactive, ex ante regulation … not solely reliant upon a case by case, backward-looking, addressing harm after it has already occurred.” Reporting on the event, the AFR put it this way: At last, consumers to take centre stage on digital safety
Following recent data breaches, OAIC & Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk talked about the imperative for companies to re-evaluate what data they should collect and hold. Over-collection increased the risk of creating a honeypot for criminals and harm to individuals she said, which both point to a critical reputational challenge: “The third risk that we ought to reflect upon … is the risk of being out of touch with the community's expectations with regards to their personal information.”
Watch the ASIC session on-demand here.
Watch the ACCC session on-demand here.
Watch the OAIC session on-demand here.
AI for Good
Addressing the trust challenge, our panel delivered a series of terrific examples of how data scientists working with indigenous nature managers, financial literacy experts and scientists can use powerful AI tools like ‘unsupervised learning’ in highly supervised ways - for the benefit of people’s health, financial wellbeing, and the environment. As Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer for Australia Lee Hickin put it: “This is what you want - AI helping humans make better decisions”
Digital Healthcare
We rounded out the week with a fascinating deep dive on data use in healthcare. Encapsulating the promise and the wicked problem that is knitting data together for patients’ benefit, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Steph Davis brought her perspective as both a health administrator and frontline GP in calling out what Doctors need to see: ‘They've got to see a direct benefit to their patient and be able to trust that the system is going to keep their patients’ data secure’.
So that’s our week one - people as the purpose for digitisation.
LESSONS FROM WEEK 2
Culture rules!
People as the purpose for digitisation was the theme from week one at the KWM Digital Future Summit. Week two built on that idea, with four fantastic sessions revealing the critical importance of culture - for digitisation to be both meaningful and effective.
Our takeaways on culture’s role in…
Creating people and organisations that thrive
Atlassian work futurist Dom Price started off week two determined to empower us all with a ‘start-small’ approach for tackling what he described as internet-driven ‘knowledge obesity’ which he called out as weighing down our ability to navigate change. “You don't need a business case or anyone else's approval to do it, you just need to give yourself permission to give it a try,” he said.
Building innovative and trustworthy FinTech products
Discussing how to safeguard markets without stifling innovation, our panel of global FinTech regulators and experts agreed with the need to ‘not let perfect be the enemy of good’. APAC Managing Director for the Future of Privacy Forum Josh Lee Kok Thong described a ‘living’ approach to monitoring emerging technologies and products: “As technology develops, as regulatory thinking shifts, as public perceptions shift, we may adjust along the way as well.”
Head of the Bank for International Settlements Bénédicte Noelens concluded that recent developments have brought FinTech to a turning point “I think if the sector wants to survive healthy, it will need to start complying with the rules that traditional sectors comply with,” she said.
Realising the potential of the Metaverse
A culture of innovation needs to be supported by acceptance that not everything will be successful, and even the things that are successful may not be successful straight away.
Asked whether the metaverse was overhyped, Microsoft’s Asia general counsel and director for commercial and regulatory affairs Tom Daemen reflected on the venerable tech company’s imminent 48th birthday, and riding similar waves of innovation and disruption - ‘we’ve seen this movie play out before,’ he said sagely, adding ‘there will be phenomenal successes, but there will also be challenges along the way, wait till we see what comes out of it before declaring an era.’
Building effective cyber-resilience and response
We concluded with a clear-eyed assessment of how organisations and their boards can meaningfully address the daunting cyber challenge. ‘Culture plays a huge part,’ began CEO of the Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre Rachael Falk, imploring leaders to lift standards. Former Telstra CEO and now Chair of the Government’s Cyber Industry Advisory Committee Andy Penn agreed, saying Boards and managers needed to ‘immerse themselves’ to truly understanding the issue. Non-Executive Directors Catherine Brenner and Mike Hawker agreed curiosity and transparency were critical to risk mitigation, and to enable effective decision-making and communication under worst-case-scenario pressure.
