This requires a combination of both business and technical skills. Added to this demand is Australia's reputation as a centre for excellence for the Asia Pacific region with its educated, multi-lingual workforce. We are finding this a tremendous growth opportunity to provide services for the region, but it is further stretching our limited skills base. So while this skills shortage is an issue, it is also en exciting opportunity. Australia, and NSW specifically, is well placed to be leaders if we can address the skills shortage issue.
Some technical expertise is needed, but so is business acumen and creativity and innovation.
This is a great loss to the ICT industry and could be a key solution to the skills issue. This doesn't entirely replace face to face training, but it means we can keep it up to date and give quick access to employees for them to up date their skills when they need it. We need to give these young enthusiastic graduates a more formal introduction to the business world so technical skills can be combined with the business needs. This is vital as the graduates are our skill base for the future. At the University of Ballarat , we funded the Chair of Computing, and more than 20 Scholarships in the past 4 years.