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Ensuring a prosperous future for regional Australia

Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents an opportunity and a threat to regional Australia. If communities, universities and government work together, we can maximise the benefits and minimise the threats from this powerful new form of technology for regional Australia. This Smarter Regions CRC will give regional Australia the ability to act with urgency and scale to address some of the key challenges and opportunities facing regional Australia.
Food and agriculture
Mining and resources
Tourism
Health and social services
Transport and logistics
Manufacturing
Smarter Regions CRC
Download Partner Information Pack

What will we achieve:

The Smarter Regions CRC will empower regional Australia to gain the maximum benefit from the AI revolution. It will transform existing industries and grow a technology sector in and for regional Australia. The result will be:

  • More profitable and competitive regional businesses and industries
  • Higher productivity leading to higher wages
  • Regional growth and jobs
  • Better delivery of regional services
  • A better return on regional investment
  • Regional Australia confident it can thrive in an AI-enabled world

The CRC will be a partnership of industry, government, universities and VET training organisations and will be the first major effort to specifically focus on enabling regions to capture the benefits of AI anywhere in the world.

The Smarter Regions CRC will better enable regional Australian businesses to achieve ‘local’ success in the 21st Century economy through four integrated research programs:
Competitive Regions - Deploying Smart Technologies: Business and governance models, standards, infrastructure, skills development, community and consumer acceptance that builds trust and drives value in new smart systems.
Connected Regions - Integrated Sensing Network Systems: Integrated network systems with new and legacy sensors that can act as one, cost-effectively collecting performance information for regional and remote communities and businesses.
Smart Regions - Decision, Prediction and Recommendation Systems: Software systems that interact easily with humans to translate data into advice on how to optimise operations in remote and regional environments, communities and industries.
Productive Regions - Autonomous Technologies: AI driven robotics, navigation and automation systems designed for specifically to improve workplace safety and job satisfaction and drive high value and productivity in regional industries.

Why is this CRC needed?

Regional Australians face different opportunities and challenges compared to urban Australians. It can be more difficult to attract skilled workers in medicine and information technology (for example). The strong export focus of regional industries means that they must achieve higher efficiencies to compete with other, lower wage countries.

What Stage is this CRC at?

We are in the early stage of the development of this CRC. The intention is to build on a core group of partners who are passionate about the vision and outcomes of this CRC. These partners will refine the objectives and design of the CRC and help to grow the number of partners.

Partners

The Smarter Regions CRC brings together a powerful combination of commercial partners with an interest in Agtech, Mining, Forestry, Driverless Vehicles, Retail, IT and Services. The current partner universities are:

  • University of Adelaide
  • University of Tasmania
  • University of the Sunshine Coast
  • Queensland University of Technology
  • University of Sydney
  • University of Western Australia
  • University of Wollongong
  • Charles Sturt University
  • La Trobe University

We are still open to new partners, but will be closing off accepting new members soon. You would benefit in becoming a member of this CRC if you are a regional businesses or industry sector based in or servicing regional Australia, an education and training provider or a government agency with responsibility for expanding opportunities or delivering services in regional Australia.

Showcase Regions

The CRC is seeking expressions of interest from regions who wanted to capture the full benefit of the Smarter Regions CRC for their communities. ‘Showcase Regions’ would be those that work closely with the CRC to rapidly transform the awareness and capability of their region in AI technologies and capabilities.

Workshops

Smarter Regions CRC is now hosting specialist, invitation only workshops with our partners. Please contact Paul Dalby if you are interested in becoming a partner in the Smarter Regions CRC:

[email protected]
There are no upcoming Events at this time.

More Information

For more information on this CRC, please send us a message online or contact:

Bid Development Leader

Professor Javen Qinfeng Shi

Australian Institute for Machine Learning
University of Adelaide, SA, 5005
[email protected]

0423 703 886

Bid Development Leader

Dr Paul Dalby

Australian Institute for Machine Learning
University of Adelaide, SA, 5005
[email protected]

0401 122 204