A cricket club's membership was in decline and "the club's few South Asian players tapped into their networks and brought in an influx of players, who now make up nearly half the playing group.""You associate sporting clubs with a big-drinking culture but with some of the player's backgrounds they can't drink because of their religion, so we've sort of put to the back of everyone else's mind and just become focused more on family" https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-09/south-asian-players-breath-life-into-melbourne-club-cricket/13227436

"The NSW government aims to develop an online research and development “match-making” service between industry and universities to solve “real world” problems." Let's save time and effort and use Australia's @Idea Spies, which is already in market and doing a brilliant job of showcasing the great work of researchers to a global audience, as part of the solution to this wicked problem. 

Any company that has R&D Labs where they develop new products has the time and space to experiment. And it's done in tech the world over. So why doesn't it happen in mainstream companies? Preeti Bajaj makes an excellent suggestion that companies should have an "Experimentation Budget". Invest a little, build an alpha and get it into users hands as quickly as possible and if it takes off, invest some more. If it doesn't, you haven't lost a lot of time or money. And to work out what ideas need solving, try listing them on @IdeasSpies for reaction. https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/leaders/companies-need-an-experimental-budget-to-get-tech-savvy-20210225-p575ro

"We have the lowest energy costs in a zero emissions world and it becomes an advantage in processing Australian minerals. That can become a huge industry.We also have big advantages in our huge areas of land for capturing carbon in plants, in the soil, exporting carbon credits, growing biomass for industry because we won't be making plastics and petrochemicals out of oil, gas and coal, we'll be making them out of biomass and if we get our act together we can do that more cheaply than others."...https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/what-will-the-post-covid-economy-look-like/13194362

The book co-authored by the Hon. Julia Gillard AC with new head of the WTO Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala “Women and Leadership - Real Lives, Real Lessons” is a must read for all leaders.It examines the influence of gender on women’s access to positions of leadership, perceptions of them as leaders, the trajectory of their leadership and how it comes to an end.This interview between Josephine Linden, Advance.org Ambassador Emeritus in the US and Julia Gillard is a warm and engaging reflection on the key themes with personal reflections and anecdotes shared by our former PM. ...WATCH THE INTERVIEWhttps://advance.org/advance-in-conversation-with-julia-gillard/

NASA celebrated the landing of #MarsPersevere on Feb 18. Abigail Allwood has been working on PIXL. Engineers at JPL and QUT have been building software to crunch the data as it comes down from Mars, making PIXL more relevant to the whole tactical decision-making process, including selection of samples. David Flannery will guide the team of scientists on the mission where to go and which samples to take. More> https://ab.co/37usWJZFrom left to right: Brendan Orenstein (PhD student), Julian Andres Galvez Serna (PhD student), Michael Jones (Collaborator), Peter Nemere (Collaborator), David Flannery (Co-I), Luke Nothdurft (Collaborator), Vanessa Zepeda (PhD student).