It is a long time since I showed any empathy with Henry Ford’s quote that “history is bunk”. I have plenty of experience to know that history is a great teacher we ignore at our peril. History tells us that innovation occurs through inspired leadership often perhaps inspired by history, I hope so.
I had the opportunity to attend NICTA’s function to formally farewell David Skellern on his retirement as CEO. David had previously made his mark in information, telecommunications and electronics through the work that led to the formation of Radiata and its world leading wireless LAN technology. This work had been pioneered by CSIRO scientists and engineers: the breakthrough came through the technology provided by fast fourier transform chips developed originally with processing radio astronomy data in mind. The ability of the chips to process multipath wireless signals, an innovative step identified by the wireless LAN team, gave the Radiata technology the necessary ability to realise a practical wireless LAN. It’s worth considering in the context of the emerging opportunities for the Square Kilometre Array what spin off work might be applied from the SKA to commercial telecommunications. The importance of a radio quiet zone for leading radio astronomy is well known but challenging, perhaps signal processing technology enabled by the need to cancel interference to the SKA may also be applied to improve the performance of wireless communications systems. Developments in chip technology made the fourier transform chips a practical proposition in commercial systems, viable signal processing could be repeated to deliver more efficient broadband wireless.
I also had the privilege of being able attended the memorial ceremony celebrating the life of Emeritus Professor John Bennett AO. John Bennett’s work at University of Sydney, who brought him back to Australia from UK, was inspired by the School of Physics under Professor Harry Messel who had recognised the importance of pioneers such as John Bennett to enable a foundation of computing science (and engineering) to be developed at academic institutions, providing the skills and research base enabling Australia to become a leader in the ICT industry. Professor Bennett studied in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering and mathematics and worked on early stored program computers at Cambridge University where he was awarded a doctorate for his dissertation “Some Engineering Applications of Digital Computations” recognising the importance of stored program computing to engineering at an early stage. Such leadership may continue in such areas as Photonics and Quantum Computing in physics departments today. We cannot be leaders in all facets of ICT and electronics but we cannot afford not to build on the leading skills we have to provide a foundation for future industry.
History confirms the importance of fundamental research in physics and it also illustrates the essential role of engineering in delivering value out of that research. Engineers are those who are able to convert the pioneering work of physicists and convert it into practical outcomes as we have seen in the area of wireless LANs and computer science and more recently photonics and perhaps soon in quantum computing. Unfortunately there are trends which seem to be diminishing the value of ICT and electronics training simply because the recognition of that value does not reflect the increasingly pervasive nature of ICT and electronics in all industries. The importance of investment in training (in particular for graduate and post graduate studies) and inspiring young people to enter ICT engineering careers is the responsibility of those who include members of the ITEE College. Please help!!
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