NewsBite

Natasha Gillezeau

December 2021

Coles general manager of customer experience and technology Sujeet Rana at Castle Hill, Sydney.

Coles launches social ad campaign to solve tech worker drought

The war for digital talent has “never been this fierce”, says Sujeet Rana, one of the supermarket giant’s technology executives.

Monday.com Australia and New Zealand regional director Dean Swan.

Unicorn Atlassian rival kicks off Australian hiring spree

Nasdaq-listed workplace and collaboration software firm monday.com will launch a hiring tear in the region, with plans to double its staff over the next year.

November 2021

Tech billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar from Atlassian and Cliff Obrecht from Canva joined Tech Council of Australia chief executive Kate Pounder to launch a new plan to tackle the tech skills shortage.

Atlassian tech titans want to be the role models they lacked

Atlassian co-founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes and Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht headed to Canberra to discuss plans to fix the tech skills shortage.

Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar says skilled staff are available away from big cities.

Atlassian rides out skills shortage remotely as tech sector forms plan

Scott Farquhar says about 30 per cent of the software company’s new hires since the pandemic began have been based more than two hours from a city centre.

EVP partner Dan Szekely, Particular Audience founder and chief executive James Taylor and Carthona Capital partner Damian Fox.

The Aussie start-up selling AI that makes you buy more online

Particular Audience lets online sellers target customers with ‘upselling’ options at their checkouts, now its own cash register is full after raising $10 million.

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Australian financial services companies are competing with tech giants for staff.

Algorithms, not trolls, the crux of online hate speech

Critics of Big Tech and social media companies say new laws that target trolls ignore the role of algorithms in promoting and surfacing hateful and harassing content. 

Silk Kadala is one of Blackbird’s accomplished new associate hires, with three degrees from the University of Western Australia.

Young high-achievers head to VC land to hunt unicorns at Blackbird

Blackbird Ventures has hired five new associates to help find it unearth the next game-changing local start-up, as it plans a new $1 billion fund.

Ed Chung is aggressively transitioning the business to subscription cloud-based software.

TechnologyOne lifts profit 15pc, targets unis, councils

TechnologyOne has reported profits after tax up 15 per cent as the company transitions customers to a recurring fee business model. 

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Breakthrough Victoria chief executive Grant Dooley with CSL scientist Jenny Chia.

CSL’s new HQ hosts biotech start-up incubator

The incubator and commercial wet lab will be open to applications from small biotechs that want to take their discoveries to the next stage of development.

Zipline.io founder Michael Momsen has targeted the aged care sector in a successful pandemic-era pivot.

Start-up banks $6m to help aged care homes check-in visitors

Aged care providers including St Vincent’s, Regis and Estia have signed on with software start-up Zipline.io to prepare post-COVID digital check-in systems.

Earlywork founders Daniel Brockwell, Jonathan Herman and Marina Wu are helping their peers get into the tech sector.

The Slack channel where Australia’s upcoming tech talent trade gigs

A community called Earlywork has attracted more than 1000 Slack members in six months, all of who are hungry for a career in technology.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Vaccine mandates should be up to businesses: PM

Scott Morrison says mandatory vaccines of certain workforces had been based on medical advice, but individual businesses should decide whether to serve unvaccinated customers; ASIC won’t be a ‘cheerleader’ for cryptocurrencies. Read to see how today unfolded.

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EasySend Asia-Pacific vice president of sale Mick O’Brien.

Israeli software firm targets Australia after raising $68m

No-code digital customer journey platform EasySend is entering the Australian market under the helm of Mick O’Brien, the former managing director of Datorama, which was acquired by Salesforce in 2018. 

Telstra’s Alex Badenoch sees workplace flexibility as important to attracting talent to the company’s ranks.

Telstra has more than 1000 jobs vacant

The telco giant says it has plenty of technology-related roles unfilled, as forecasts from the tech industry’s peak body show a spiralling skills crisis.

Xero chief executive Steve Vamos says small business will drive the post-pandemic economic recovery.

Xero poised for growth as churn drops and average revenue per user nudges up

Accounting software company Xero has come out of the half-yearly results gate poised for growth.

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Xero chief executive Steve Vamos says small business will drive the post-pandemic economic recovery.

Xero snaps up inventory tracking software start-up

The ASX-listed accounting software darling has acquired four-year-old American inventory management software company LOCATE Inventory, while posting a loss.

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Siteminder CEO Sankar Narayan rings the ASX bell ahead of its IPO.

SiteMinder surges on ASX debut

Aussie unicorn hotel booking firm SiteMinder had a bumper first day of trading on the ASX, putting investors in mind of the likes of WiseTech Global and Xero.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

‘Get on with it’: PM on fallen France deal

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says that “claims were made and claims were refuted, what is needed now is for us to move on” on submarine deal; WA slightly eases its hard border with NSW. Follow updates here.

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University of Melbourne student Finn Blake, 21, says Facebook has been heavily intertwined in his life in both positive and frustrating ways.

Facebook’s Meta morph not enough to allay concerns of 20-somethings

Rebranding or not, young Australians who have been using Facebook since high school have mixed feelings about the social media giant.

Nick Benson, founder of Atelier, which helps bring a range of new product ideas to life.

Meet the former consultant turning influencers into entrepreneurs

Behind every great social media influencer is a man who knows how to make and source a kick ass niche product for them to on sell to their followers. 

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/by/natasha-gillezeau-h18hvf