On Wednesday, February 7 2024, ASA held an online interactive event to showcase how we have brought young neurodivergent people, living in regional Australia, out of long-term unemployment by creating in-demand digital economy careers. Our Acting Chief People Officer, Daniel Shields and People Success Officer (Transition Coordinator) Seath Holswich presented the career opportunities available for young neurodivergent adults at ASA, our recruitment process, and work experience openings in Cairns.
We also had two of our amazing Lead Data Analysts, Amie Hewlett-Parker and Charles Anderson, present on the critical infrastructure projects they work on, including the Queensland Department of Resources roads and address validation project and the Ventia National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout.
Attendees discovered from Amie how our data analysts delivered our landmark roads and address work with the Queensland Department of Resources. Our team of 10 analysts, mainly from our Cairns office, conducted updates for over 21,000 road features, 43,000 addresses and 100,000 access points for the Sunshine Coast Council area in only 10 weeks with a <1% error rate. Remarkably, most were unemployed three months before the project commenced and had never used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software before. One person had been out of work for over six years. This is essential work as many end-users, such as emergency services, rely on accurate data for first response.
Charles spoke about how our team has worked on documenting the NBN rollout across Australia. Critical infrastructure and nation-defining projects like the NBN depend on keeping extensive and accurate records, called As-builts, as these documents reflect all changes made throughout the construction process and accurately represent a completed job. To date, our team has worked on over 6,000 individual jobs over 24,000 hours.
In this video, you will learn how our neurodiverse Cairns team has thrived after only opening in early 2023. In a very short time, we’ve helped create geospatial and digital engineering careers for over 10 young neurodivergent adults in Cairns and over 150 across Australia since 2020.
By harnessing the cognitive strengths of neurodiverse individuals and providing on-the-job training in skills for the digital economy, we create enormous economic and social impact for the Australian community. You can learn more about ASA at our Data Services and Talent Services pages.
If you are interested in employment or work experience opportunities at ASA’s Cairns office, please visit our Careers page or email [email protected]