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Clever Country or Graveyard of Invention?
By Alison Handmer
Entrepreneur Alex Hartman, who as a precocious teenager ran two IT companies from his bedroom, urged Australians to “go forth and innovate” in a rousing speech at the University.
The 21-year-old businessman and part-time law student shared his vision of an Australia in which scientists and teachers are valued as much as sports heroes.
“Let us be outraged that Australian scientists continue to be undervalued, and that the starvation of universities and schools continues to deprive inquisitive minds of the opportunity to develop and implement their thoughts,” he said, speaking in MacLaurin Hall on the theme of Crafting a Clever Country .
When the Wallabies lose a game of rugby, he argued, record crowds fill stadiums to encourage them to believe they will learn from their mistakes and win the next game. Clever entrepreneurs and innovators deserved the same treatment, he said.
Integral to his vision is IT literacy for young and old, male and female, rich and poor. He said this was “as important as basic literacy and numeracy”.
Alex, after setting up two IT companies at the age of 13, went on to found Amicus Software. In 2001 he launched Mytek Pty Ltd which provides IT support services across Australia . Now a member of the Innovation Advisory Council and managing director of Mytek, he continues to invent software.
Alex Hartman: “Innovation is an equaliser. Any person from any background who wakes up in the middle of the night with a good idea can change the world.”
Acknowledging the University of Sydney as a place where “many of our country's greatest minds have been incubated and empowered to change the world in many and varied endeavours”, he warned that the brain, like any other organ will atrophy if not used.
“The continued starvation of Australia 's universities and schools can only devastate our prospects of achieving any ambition of cleverness”, he said.
He praised the model provided by Stanford, where companies and educational institutions work together for mutual prosperity.
“Innovation is an equaliser,” he said. “Any person from any background who wakes up in the middle of night with a good idea can change the world – it may be the world of their family, their backyard, music, the local pub or global business – but never in history has that chance existed in the way it does now.”
“Let's team together, adopt some of the elements of the game plan I have spoken of, fill the stadium with cheering spectators, acknowledge we are only as strong as the weakest member of our team and win the World Cup of cleverness in the exciting new age.”
Source: Handmer, A. (2002) Clever Country or graveyard of invention? In University News , The University of Sydney . Retrieved: 7 August 2003 from http://www.usyd.edu/publications/news/2405News/2405_clever
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