Aviation students at the University of South Australia will be training in cockpits of the two most popular jetliners in the world going forward. UniSA is due to take delivery of its second simulator this year – the Airbus A320 – allowing budding pilots to learn their way around a new cockpit, alongside the existing 737 flight simulator which is used for training undergraduate aviation students.
Bachelor of Aviation Program Director stated that the state-of-the-art Airbus A320 simulator, manufactured by a New Zealand firm, should be in place by mid-2022. He noted that for students to be able to train on both the Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 simulators is a very rare opportunity. To his knowledge, UniSA will be the only university in Australia offering both Boeing and Airbus based flight simulators as part of its undergraduate aviation experience.
The exposure to two very different simulators will give UniSA’s aviation graduates a competitive edge by aligning their competencies with the industry requirements. While flying these planes may only happen later in their career, the fact they have been trained in two different cockpit environments will give them a definite advantage.
Apart from training students to fly, the new simulator will also be used for research purposes, investigating how fatigue, lack of movement, and other aspects of human factors affect pilot performance.
UniSA also hopes to incorporate virtual and augmented reality into the simulator training. The software components of the new simulator are similar to the Boeing 737, but the hardware is a fully enclosed shell structure with a 180-degree visual range.
Approximately 100 Bachelor of Aviation (Pilot) students use the simulator in their third year, putting into practice the theory they have learned up to that point in aircraft systems, flight plans, aerodynamics and navigation. The simulators allow students to work as a crew, giving them exposure to abnormal procedures, including engine failures, tricky weather conditions, and other scenarios that might not be suited for actual flight.
Simulators save lives and training costs, and with the addition of a second simulator, they will also give the university’s students a broader range of aviation experience that will serve them well in the real world. The idea that 100 pilots a year could walk out of university at a much higher bar, is great for the Australian flying community, the Program Director said. While COVID-19 has grounded many pilots temporarily and forced some into early retirement, the airline crisis has a silver lining for new students, he added. Most pilots who stood down or were made redundant during the height of the pandemic will not return, he predicts, providing plenty of job opportunities for newly trained pilots in the next few years.
According to a recent paper released by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, aviation is central to Australia’s economy and quality of life. Aviation underpins Australian business: transporting workers, tourists and high-value freight. The sector directly employed over 90,000 people and contributed $20 billion to the economy before COVID-19. Furthermore, the sector indirectly enables the tourism, mining, manufacturing and higher education sectors.
Aviation plays an important role in servicing the needs of regional and remote communities across Australia by providing and maintaining access to air services that include transport and freight, medical, search and rescue, social and law enforcement, and business/tourism travel.
Aviation is key to the tourism sector which accounts for around six per cent of GDP and is Australia’s fourth-largest export industry. Total international passenger traffic increased by around 75 per cent over the past 10 years to 2019.
The aviation sector acts as a crucial enabler across mining, construction, manufacturing and higher education. More than 60,000 people work more than 350 kilometres from their usual place of residence, the vast majority are likely to travel by air. Thousands of fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workers serve the mining, construction, and oil and gas industry. A large majority (about 86%) of FIFO workers work in remote or very remote areas. Thus, training the pilots of Australia’s future is a necessary and important task.
The proliferation of public WiFi hotspots in rural and urban areas will lead to increased employment for micro and small entrepreneurs by providing them with additional sources of income, Department of Telecommunication (DoT) Secretary, K Rajaraman, recently stated. He was speaking at the 3rd WiFi India Virtual Summit 2022, organised by the BroadBand India Forum. Rajaraman said that telecom and Internet service providers would also benefit from the sale of Internet recharge vouchers to public data offices.
Developments under the scheme have been steady with already more than 56,000 access points deployed and there is still scope to further develop the WiFi ecosystem in the country. By a conservative estimate of each hotspot enabling 2-3 direct and indirect employment opportunities, the creation of ten million hotspots would potentially generate 20-30 million job opportunities in the small and medium scale sectors. Setting up these hotspots is in line with NDCP (National Digital Communications Policy) targets for 2022.
According to a news report by The Indian Express, in December 2020, the Union Cabinet had, in a bid to improve wireless Internet connectivity across the country, approved the setting up of public WiFi networks across the country. WiFi is provided through public data offices (PDOs) for which are no licence, registration, or any other fees are required. The scheme, the Prime Minister WiFi Access Network Interface (PM- WANI), envisaged the setting up of PDOs and PDO aggregators that look after the authorisation and accounting of PDOs. The idea of a PDO was first floated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in 2017. Six months later, it set up the initial pilot project for PDOs, in which private tech giants, as well as the government’s Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) had participated.
Like a PCO, the PDO allows users to connect to a public WiFi system for a limited session depending on the Internet pack chosen by the user. These internet packages can either be charged per minute or per hour by the PDOs. In the 2018 test model, Trai wanted users to be able to buy “sachet-sized” Internet plans, which varied between IN₹2 (US$0.027) and IN₹20 (US$0.27) and can be used anytime.
Recently, Trai announced that there will not be any safety issues to an aircraft flying over India due to the upcoming 5G mobile services. It emphasised that the new-age technology is safe for planes in the country. Recently, several flights to the US were cancelled or rescheduled as airlines feared that the 5G phone service could pose a risk to aircraft instruments. Assuring that 5G services won’t be a problem for planes in India, an official told reporters that prima facie, there are no problems for the aviation industry within India over 5G spectrum rollout.” The auctions for 5G spectrum in India are expected to happen later this year, following which the rollout will happen over the next two years.
Over the next decade, Australia has the opportunity to prioritise six areas in relation to robotics and automation on earth and in space, the Australian Space Agency (ASA) highlighted. In its recent publishing of the Robotics and Automation on Earth and in Space Roadmap, the ASA identified these six areas as remote operations, interoperability, analogue facilities and services, robotic platforms, in-situ resource utilisation services (ISRU), and terrestrial foundation services, such as materials handling and transport.
Specifically, the roadmap describes how Australia could leverage its existing expertise in robotics technology and systems, provide solutions in the global marketplace to support the sustainable build-up of space assets and infrastructure, and enable international collaboration with industry.
The CTO of ASA stated that Australia has expertise in large-scale remote asset management and Earth-based robotics in harsh environments. A great example of this is our resource sector. This means the nation is well-placed to become a leader in the automation of off-Earth activities and to capture high-tech manufacturing opportunities in the process.
Within each of the segment areas, the roadmap identified there are key target capabilities that could be achieved. These include establishing and operating the Australian Space Automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics control complex, demonstrating the use of an end-to-end sovereign chain of control for lunar activities, and establishing an Australian facility for co-design and interoperability verification and validation.
The roadmap also noted one of the key objectives should be for Australia to offer terrestrial analogue test-bed facilities and services to undertake essential field testing and systems validation for planetary surface operations.
Utilising AI, edge computing, distributed computation, non-traditional computation, and sensing technologies, as well as developing practices for mission-critical hardware and software would also allow Australia to implement robotic platforms that can be used to deliver foundation services and ISRU via remote operations, according to the roadmap.
This latest 10-year plan is the third in a series of seven roadmaps to be delivered by the ASA that all aim to describe a pathway for Australia to uplift its capability, coordinate activities between industry, researchers, and government agencies, and encourage organisations to invest resources in segments that have been identified in the roadmaps. The four remaining roadmaps will be developed throughout 2022.
The release of the roadmap comes a day after the South Australian and federal governments announced a joint partnership for Canberra to make an AU$64 million national investment to upgrade satellite GPS capability. Under the upgrade, the federal government will add an extra 57 reference stations nationally to the existing 700 reference station network, including 12 new additions in South Australia, which already has an existing network of 68 reference stations. The upgrade in South Australia is expected to be completed by June 2022, while the national upgrade is expected to be completed by June 2023.
Off the back of the upgrade, the South Australian government said it would deliver robots called the Tiny Surveyor, provided by Position Partners, for the state’s Port Wakefield project. These robots will be connected to the state’s reference station network and utilise positioning technology to complete line-marking tasks, with anticipation this would see tasks completed in days, instead of weeks.
The Minister for Resources and Water stated that the upgrade has real-world benefits for major infrastructure upgrades, such as roads, sporting fields, airport runways and car parks, while also boosting productivity across industries such as agriculture and logistics.
This technology will improve positioning accuracy from 5 to 10 metres, right down to 3 to 5 centimetres in areas with mobile phones and internet coverage.
It will enable government and industry alike to easily connect and access positioning data and pave the way for innovation and new positioning-based products, services, and technologies for the benefit of industry and community, he added.
To more securely explore artificial intelligence applications to advance patient care, the Virginia Department of Behavioural Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) will be creating an anonymised digital twin of patient data to more securely explore artificial intelligence applications to advance patient care.
BHDS will first deploy GEMINAI synthetic data engine, which creates a duplicate dataset of patient information. That digital twin will have the same statistical properties, nuances and characteristics of a population of interest, but it will contain no personal information associated with patients that might reveal their identity.
DBHDS can generate “synthetic patients” with specific medical conditions that fit certain demographic profiles, all without the personal health information of the original dataset, and with no one-to-one relationship back to the production data or any way to reverse-engineer the data to tie it back to a real person.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, a synthetic health data engine employs an open-source development model. Synthea uses publicly available data to generate synthetic health records and can export information in multiple standardised formats. Synthea generates realistic patients, simulates their entire lives, and outputs electronic health record data.
Synthetic health data sets are compatible with a variety of technologies, such as the Health Level Seven International. This type of synthetic health data engine can support the greater Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) data infrastructure by providing researchers and health IT developers with a low-risk, readily available synthetic health data source to provide access to data until real clinical data are available.
Clinical data are critical for the conduct of PCOR, which focuses on the effectiveness of prevention and treatment options. However, realistic patient data are often difficult to access because of cost, patient privacy concerns, or other legal restrictions. Synthetic health data help address these issues and speed the initiation, refinement, and testing of innovative health and research approaches.
The department said the data it had been using in its test and development environment did not meet security baselines for the protection of patient data. For those less secure applications, DBHDS needed synthetic, or properly de-identified and HIPAA compliant data. In addition to providing the synthetic data, the department said it wanted capabilities for machine learning prediction, data characterisation, decision reasoning, transparency and auditability.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, People with diseases or conditions that affect the base of the skull, such as otologic abnormalities, cancerous tumours and birth defects, might need to undergo skull base surgery at some point in their life. Surgeons must skillfully operate on and within a person’s skull, accessing specific regions using drills to successfully conduct these challenging procedures.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) have recently developed a new system that could be used to train surgeons to complete skull base surgeries, as well as potentially other complex surgical procedures. This system, presented in a paper published in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging & Visualisation, is based on the use of a virtual reality (VR) simulator.
So far, the system provides an immersive simulation environment where the surgeons can interact with a virtual skull which is generated from a patient CT (Computer Tomography) scan. A virtual drill that is controlled via a haptic device (or a keyboard) is used to drill through the virtual skull. The interaction between the drill and the skull is used to generate force feedback which is provided via the haptic device for realistic tactility. Finally, for visual realism and depth perception, stereoscopic video is displayed on a VR (Virtual Reality) headset.
To boost the agriculture sector, experts believe small-scale farmers should adopt affordable technology-driven agriculture initiatives while the government speeds up investment in smart agricultural transformation (SAT). According to Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) Research Fellow Roehlano Briones, smart agriculture covers a wide range of technologies, some of which could be handled by small farmers. Setting up a sensor that will communicate with farmers’ mobile phones is a start, he said during a recent Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) event.
The APO is an intergovernmental organisation established to increase productivity in the Asia-Pacific region through cooperation. As per a news release, Briones particularly cited the case where the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) collaborated to develop the Rice Crop Manager (RCM), a technology that provides real-time scientific advice to farmers. Briones also suggested that some farmers collaborate on a smarter management system offered by a service provider that makes use of drones and other automated scientific systems for pest control. Instead of one farmer availing of the service, it could be a group of farmers in a contiguous area. They would agree to share and subscribe to the service. They would collect the payment and the service provider would help the group by organising a cooperative, he explained.
“There are solutions like these, or aspects of smart agricultural technologies and I am optimistic that we will see more and more of these in the years to come,” he added. These technologies may not require large-scale investment. It could be as simple as an upgraded mobile phone that can run an app for sensor-based analysis. This could be done at the level of individual farmers. However, he claimed that they “need to be convinced”. To accelerate SAT in APO member countries, governments must continue investing not just in sophisticated technologies but also in basic agricultural tools. These include conventional rural infrastructure and research and development.
The better the logistics, the more sense it makes for farmers to adopt e-commerce. Equally important is research and development in, for example, an extension system to be able to deliver new products and services to farmers. Briones underscored the importance of investments in human resources in the rural workforce, and in digital literacy and openness to new techniques. “That is ultimately the key towards smart agricultural transformation,” he stated.
Last month, 11 units of smart greenhouses were set up in the Jaro District, which will provide an all-year-round supply of high-value crops to ease the fear of food shortage amid the pandemic. The smart greenhouses are expected to be completed at the Department of Agriculture -Western Visayas Integrated Agricultural Research Centre (DA-WESVIARC) during the first quarter of 2022. The information technology-based or smart greenhouses are funded by the Korean government through the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). The project costs PHP5.5 million (US$107,296) with each unit priced at PHP500,000 (US$9,754). An official stated that the technology is not the same as hydroponics. It is more high-tech. The facility needs no manual operation as it is computerised. The computer determines the temperature and nutritional needs of the plants grown in it.
A data centre company has revealed it’s building a second new centre in Auckland, which it expects will help boost the economy by a total of $1.4 billion. The company is already constructing its first New Zealand cloud data centre in the northwest of Auckland.
It is now planning to develop a five-hectare site in north Auckland into Aotearoa’s biggest data centre and has hailed the new site as a significant milestone for the company. The CEO for the Australia and New Zealand branch of the firm stated that the company had committed to a major investment programme in the country thanks to the increasing use of cloud computing services here.
The two data centres will be “purpose-built, secure, environmentally-friendly” and designed specifically for the New Zealand market. These two investments will collectively bring over $600 million to the Auckland region, with a combined economic value exceeding $1.4 billion over the life of the projects.
Each data centre will create more than 150 jobs during construction and approximately 250 ongoing skilled information technology and telecommunications jobs once the sites are operational.
The company has said it has taken a “highly consultative approach” to the building of the Auckland data centres. It has engaged with both government and industry stakeholders to design a data centre ready for an accelerated digital agenda, one that enables the use of cloud technology to drive innovation, improve productivity, and enhance security to better protect data and information for all New Zealand organisations.
That has included using a local construction company. The intention is for both data centres to be run with 100 per cent renewable sources, and to set industry-leading benchmarks for water and energy efficiency.
The first data centre is already fully leased and will be ready for service early next year, DCI said. Construction of the new centre is scheduled to commence in mid-2022. In the last couple of years technology giants, Microsoft and Amazon have both unveiled plans for massive data centres in Aotearoa.
Meanwhile, a US-based tech giant revealed it was going to build a $100 million data centre in 2020. And in September 2021 a world-leading e-commerce platform confirmed it will open a new Cloud Region in New Zealand in 2024. The company says it will invest around NZ$7.5 billion into the country over the next 15 years and create 1000 jobs.
The global data centre market was valued at $187.35 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $517.17 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 10.5% from 2021 to 2030.
Physical data centre facilities in an enterprise are designed to share IT operations and equipment to store, process, and disseminate data and applications. Further, data centres are based on a network of computer applications and storage solutions intended to share information and data.
The shift in traditional on-premises physical servers to virtual network-based data centres – a result of the advancement in multi-cloud computing – is driving the growth of data centres globally. The modern data centre in an enterprise can communicate with multiple sites, both cloud computing and on-premises.
The data centre market is expected to witness notable growth during the forecast period, owing to the rise in data centre complexities due to scalability. Furthermore, the rise in penetration of high-end cloud computing in enterprises, globally in developing economies drives the growth of the data centre market during the forecast period. Moreover, an increase in the investment in a data centre application globally is expected to propel market growth.
However, the rise in concerns related to data privacy paired with the growing demand for managed services is expected to restrain the market growth. Further, an increase in penetration of the Internet of Things and hybrid & multi-cloud architecture solutions is expected to provide a lucrative opportunity for the growth of the data centre market during the forecast period.
The Minister of Communications and Informatics Johnny G. Plate encourages everyone to continue to improve their quality of life in line with the projected number and types of new jobs due to technology adoption. It is projected that there will be 85 million old jobs that may be lost and 97 million new jobs that may appear, this is due to the division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms. The new jobs require a high level of digital skills and soft skills.
A report shows that in 2025 there will be 43% of industry players who reduce or reduce the number of workers as a consequence of the application of technology integration. Increasing digital skills and soft skills in line with technological developments for the workforce, especially the younger generation of Indonesia, can be done through upskilling and reskilling.
New types of jobs that are emerging and in increasing demand include data analyst and scientist, big data specialist, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning specialist, digital marketing and strategy specialist. Other types of work that will develop are renewable energy engineers, process automation specialists, Internet of Things (IoT) specialists, digital transformation specialists, business services and administration managers; and business development professionals.
– Johnny G. Plate, Minister of Communications and Informatics
The government will continue to encourage the private sectors in Indonesia from various fields to fulfil human resource needs that are in line with future needs. Therefore, the government certainly welcomes private sector initiatives in developing human resources.
The government under the leadership of President Joko Widodo for the 2019-2024 period has five important points, one of which is human resource development. Besides human resource development, the government also accelerates and continues infrastructure development, invites the widest possible investment to create jobs, reforms the bureaucracy.
Amid demands for improving the quality of human resources and talent management, the focus of human resource development is also directed at increasing the nation’s competitiveness. A great nation is a nation that has strong and great human resources.
Specifically, in improving superior human resources, the government continues to strengthen investment in education, among others through the expansion of scholarship programs, adoption of information and communication technology, cultural advancement, strengthening of world-class universities, as well as research and innovation development.
In addition, the Government has also carried out massive infrastructure development, especially in the first period of President Joko Widodo’s leadership. According to the Minister of Communication and Informatics, entering the current era of digital transformation, the development of digital infrastructure has been and is being accelerated by the Government and its partners and needs to be balanced with improving the quality of human resources.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, in the measurement of the Indonesia Digital Literacy Index 2021, Digital Culture has the highest score. The pillar of Digital Culture was recorded with a score of 3.90 on a scale of 5 or good. Furthermore, the pillars of Digital Ethics (digital ethics) with a score of 3.53 and Digital Skills with a score of 3.44. Meanwhile, the Digital Safety pillar got the lowest score (3.10) or slightly above average. The measurement of this digital literacy index is not only to find out the status of digital literacy in Indonesia but also to ensure that efforts to increase people’s digital literacy are more targeted.
The four pillars that form the Digital Literacy Index are measured annually by the Ministry of Communication and Informatics. This year the Indonesian Digital Literacy Index is at a score of 3.49 or at a moderate and close to a good stage. The use of the four pillars in this measurement refers to the 2020-2024 Indonesia Digital Literacy Roadmap compiled by the Ministry of Communication and Information, based on previous national research and refers to similar measurements held by UNESCO.
China’s civil aviation industry will grow smarter with the help of new-generation digital technologies, per a roadmap issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). Solid digital transformation progress should be made by 2025, with the efficiency of security checks rising 30% from 2020, according to the roadmap. More than 90% of airport trips will see paperless services, and luggage transfers between airports will be facilitated by 2025.
By 2030, key breakthroughs will be made in intelligent applications. Domestic airports will fully support the whole process of facial recognition services, and some cities and surrounding villages will form an unmanned aircraft logistics distribution network to enhance the efficiency of logistics and lower delivery costs in rural areas. By the end of 2021, 66 airports nationwide were capable of providing facial recognition services, according to CAAC data.
A total of 234 airports were capable of providing passengers with paperless journeys by introducing e-boarding and e-security checks, allowing passengers to travel with only their identification cards and eliminating the need for conventional paper boarding tickets. By the end of 2021, 842 aircraft in China’s civil aviation fleet were capable of providing inflight Wi-Fi services.
The booming digitalisation trend is driving China’s endeavour of building a smart civil aviation industry to boost sustainable development. To give full play to digital technologies, civil aviation authorities will integrate the “smart” concept and technologies into industry growth. The move to create smart civil aviation is expected to provide new room for industry development and drive high-quality and high-efficiency growth of this sector, with digitalisation as the key driving force.
The aviation industry generates and processes massive amounts of data along its long industrial chain, making it naturally more adaptive to the wave of digitization. The application of digital technologies is of great importance to ensuring safety, efficiency and sustainable growth.
The CAAC is committed to making the entire industry smart by integrating new-generation digital technologies into the whole industry — from air travel, air logistics and customs clearance, to the industry’s operation and supervision, according to the CAAC’s smart aviation strategy. The CAAC is actively promoting the radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in luggage tracking, automatic luggage check-in, facial recognition, and intelligent inquiry services, among others.
The CAAC is also encouraging innovation in related technologies and drafting tech roadmaps in fields such as in-flight internet surfing on commercial aeroplanes. air passengers’ in-flight internet surfing experience will be greatly enhanced, from previous cabin local networks to broadband connectivity with much higher speed.
The CAAC’s strategy in building a smart civil aviation industry is expected to boost the sector’s further recovery from the COVID-19 impact, and open new space for industry players. Digital technologies will greatly boost the profitability and market performance of airlines, by saving fuel and personnel, cutting operation and maintenance costs, and enhancing safety and passenger experience.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, China is looking to gain a competitive edge in the transportation sector during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) amid a larger drive to foster green, smart and high-quality development over the long run. There are imbalances and inadequacies in the development of comprehensive transportation, hence it is urgent to promote high-quality transportation development.
By 2025, the comprehensive transportation system will witness integrated development, substantial strides in green and smart development, an improved facility network and more effective transportation services. More than 95% of cities with a population of over 500,000 will be covered by the high-speed railway network, with trains having maximum speeds of 250 kilometres per hour and faster. By 2035, a convenient, cost-effective, green, smart, advanced and reliable modern national comprehensive transportation network will be completed.
