“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
These are the opening words from novel ‘The Tale of Two Cities’ written by Charles Dickins from 161 years ago. This opening salvo however, seems contemporary and real.
At the dawning of the new decade 2020, we are experiencing an uneasy and contemporaneous co-existence of pain and happiness, grief and celebration through many narratives – the Coronavirus, impeachment, floods, cyclones and fires.
“I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.” This snippet comes from Dorothea Mackeller’s poem that I learned as a young student was evocative and visual, reflecting an era when our nation’s prosperity rode ‘off the sheep’s back’. We still love our sunburnt country but now we grieve for the loss.
The fires that have scorched over 20 million hectares destroyed not only lives of people and animals but plants, homes, lives, connections, narratives and histories. Watching on my laptop from overseas during the Christmas break was strange to see small towns I had passed through as a kid on the ‘great Australian summer long drive’ spoken about in 24 media news cycles - Mallacoota, Tathra, Merimbula - by BBC, CNN, Al- Jazeera journalists and scientists.
The same news feeds however highlighted a very salient, comforting and important message – In the terror of heat, darkness, crackle, singe and destruction, the very best of humanity reveals itself up front and centre.
Mallacoota residents protecting children and pets in metal tinnies, knitting circles formed overnight to make mittens for injured koalas, and spontaneous raffles and fundraisers were held to give, share and help. Old, young, local and global all found a place to play their part. There was also the Banana Women. Officially known as the Lakes Tyers Aboriginal Trust Country Fire Authority, this all female indigenous firefighting crew who had lost everything to fire 20 years ago in the eastern part of Victoria are now, self-organising, in order to protect their sacred land, their communities and their families.
In times of despair we see the very best of humanity.
It is these stories that help us make sense of when being human is and how we together can rally against adversity, challenge and devastation.
Last week, I was afforded the opportunity to think further about the power of humanity and in particular the potential to transform communities for good through people and technology during RMIT’s Engaging for Impact Summit with CEO of Red Cross Australia, Judy Slatyer and CEO of Frontier ST, Graeme Kernich.
The theme ‘Connected Communities, People and Places’ enabled a wide ranging conversation including how technology may help tackle significant challenges facing humanity. We learned, the new research centre to be headquartered at RMIT will investigate how rapidly emerging autonomous decision making can be used responsibility, ethically and inclusively. The centre will not only be able to consider challenges such as mobility but will improve our responses to humanitarian emergencies.
Another example offered was Humanitech. This is a Red Cross collaboration with partners that, anchored by technology, will use data, intelligence, insights to respond to challenges that are both policy and practice based in order to ensure that the digital era we are embarking upon truly serves humanity – human safety, human dignity, and building and protecting rather than destroying the trust of communities big and small.
Awareness is increasing of how technology can be used to the detriment of society- fake news and documentaries showcase digital manipulation of voters and public opinion, not to mention the recognition from coders to policy makers of ‘machine learning (ML) fairness’ or indeed unfairness. Now is the time to ensure we shape the future of humanity by leveraging new and emerging technologies but never forgetting to whom we serve.
A great example of this occurred on February 9 2020 across our nation when the surveying, geospatial and wider community came together for the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) National Bushfire Recovery Map-a-thon. The event was held in seven locations across Australia, with five of these venues provided by GHD. The volunteers updated and digitised new spatial data over fire impacted areas with the aim to update our national maps. These small but practical steps contribute to the efforts of updating information through the best technologies available so that recovery services can be strengthened and better data can be available for researchers and analysts who focus on resilience and future preparedness scenarios.
We live in extraordinary times where the intersection of technology and human experience offers many alternative narratives for how our future stories will reveal themselves.
Robert Frost’s poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ invites the reader to reflect upon the consequences of taking one path over the other. We have an opportunity to take a path where people equipped with the best technology available might address some of humanity’s most challenges and complex problems. If we embark deliberatively upon this future path (i.e. where human and digital work together for the common goal of ‘transform for good’), only then might we be able to co-opt the poet’s final line when Frost concludes “And that has made all the difference”.
About the Author
Meet Jacyl
With over 20 years’ experience delivering innovation, Jacyl is the Global Director of D-Lab working with multi-sectoral clients from higher education, industry, start-ups, accelerator hubs, government and research agencies, she provides tailored consulting programs, projects and services.
For more information please visit www.ghd.com/digital or contact Jacyl at Jacyl.Shaw@ghd.com