‘Anything is possible when you follow your passion…’ That’s the message from the new campaign from the South Australian Government designed to encourage students to study maths and science and look to future careers in the field.

The campaign includes an interactive website, career ambassadors and a competition to win an ultimate worksite visit.

SA Deputy Premier, Kevin Foley announced, “We need more students thinking about careers in science, engineering and technology, as well as the mechanical, electrical and construction trades.” Adding, “Choosing the right subjects in the final years of high school is a vital prerequisite to working in these dynamic sectors.”

South Australia has a high demand for these industries, particularly due to defence, research, information technology and mining sectors.

This is an excellent resource for anyone considering their future. This campaign has the same core goals as EngVibe, so we’re big fans. Check it out, the main site is here:

 www.TheresMoreToIt.com.au

Overall, this is an outstanding initiative by the SA Government.

(Source: SouthAustralia.biz | Image: TheresMoreToIt)

The impact of the GFC is starting to be felt in Australia, with the announcement this week of unemployment reaching a five-year high.

Separate news reports over the past few weeks have shed some light onto how this will impact the engineering and scientific industries.

The first article from the ABC talks about jobs drying up for new graduates: “Four years ago there was a lot of demand for engineering places and I guess the market was growing a lot but now it’s the exact opposite, so it’s a bit of a shock to the system.”

The second article from the Australian, highlights the impact the slower market has had on school leavers, with universities showing a significant rise in applications: “In what will be seen as a welcome response to skills shortages in the national priority discipline of engineering, undergraduate enrolments are about 12per cent higher than last year. At 20 per cent higher than last year, full-year engineering enrolments for overseas students heave reached the highest level in recent years.”

It will be a tought time ahead for new uni grads and those currently looking for work. The increase of engineering students, however, will be a big boost for industry over the next few years.

Image by stuartpilbrow

Business Week has an article on the state of the Technology sector job market.  Good news for Engineers in that area- “Unable to find enough U.S. citizens for tech jobs, U.S. companies scoop up as many foreign nationals as they can using the limited pool of H-1B work visas issued by the federal government each year.”

Have a read here.

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Were you jumping around the lounge playing Nintendo Wii games the other day? Did you turn around to your fellow Wii Sportsman and say, “What’s the next step after these motion-controlled games? I reckon we should try and make a console that uses your brain to control the game.  We’ll be millionaires!”

Well, you are too slow. This article covers an Australian company, Emotiv Systems, who have done exactly that.  CEO and co-founder Nam Do says, “Our vision for the future communications between man and machine is that it’s not going to be limited to conscious control, but non-conscious interaction will play a big part.”

Can’t beat them to market, why not join them: Senior C / C++ Software Engineer / Architect - Sydney,  Research Scientist - Sydney

Engineers create a huge range of products and systems it isn’t worth trying to list them. For Allan Alcorn his creation and legacy: Pong, the world’s first popular video game. 

Allan was a young electrical engineer when he was hired by Atari. He created a game designed to be so simple that ‘any drunk in any bar could play’.

Allan made the trip to Melbourne to visit Game On, a cool exhibition about of the history of video games at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) – featuring 125+ playable arcade and console games. He thinks himself ‘extremely lucky to have been in the right place at the right time at the start of an industry.’ 

Engineering, who knows what you’ll create. I’m sure Allan didn’t plan on changing home entertainment history with a simple 2D tennis game.

Read a news piece from the Sydney Morning Herald or learn more about Game On.

Two fourth-year University of Queensland students have made PNG their place of work as part of the university’s Professional Engineering Placement Scholarship program. 

David Shaw and Adam Brown will work at New Britain Palm Oil Limited where they will apply work conducted as part of their research projects related to the company.

The projects involves optimising the operation of a screw press that extracts oil from the palm fruit and improving the efficiency of steam emissions, reducing costs. 

‘Things are so different to Australia, so we had to adapt to a totally different way of working,’ David said. 

The UQ press page is here.

West Australian Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan announced an $11 million pilot program to support science and maths teachers.

The program involves former teachers and university lecturers being brought in to mentor new teachers and provide guidance. The program aids to reduce the drop-out rate of teachers to avoid shortages. 

“With new graduates straight out of university, they are very well educated and know a lot about their field but they often need a little bit of help in managing students and working out what is the best techniques are for educating students,” Mr McGowan said.

The program will be available to all first-year teachers in physics, chemistry and mathematics.

The full story from the WA News is here.

A survey (2007 National Local Government Remuneration Survey conducted by McArthur Management Services) has revealed that pay levels for engineers has improved 9 to 10 per cent over the past year.

Shortages in engineering and other technical roles have been cited as the key reason.

Defence industry’s strong growth in the state has put engineers, geologists, accountants and project management in the highest demand in SA this year.

Employment outlook has improved in SA after lagging behind the national rate, over 18,000 new full time jobs were created last year. Unemployment hit 4.8 per cent.

“Experienced people in many of these professions are extremely rare,” says Michael Tapscott from Challenge Recruitment.

This year it is expected that construction and service sectors will also see strong growth. Read the full bit at AdelaideNow.