Delivery jobs plan to save businesses

A Brisbane AI entrepreneur has crunched the numbers to show that Brisbane could adopt a model that would keep the city and state moving while keeping coronavirus contacts down.

ABOUT 9000 jobs could be created in Brisbane that would help keep small businesses alive across the city by converting out-of-work employees into an army of delivery drivers serving their local areas.

Evan Shellshear, head of analytics at world-leading Brisbane-based artificial intelligence, logistics and computing experts Biarri, has crunched the numbers to show that Brisbane could adopt a model that would keep the city and state moving while keeping coronavirus contacts down.

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Dr Shellshear said the infrastructure, people and vehicles exist to set up the simple, local courier service that was viable based on a five-minute service area and $10 delivery charge on top of prices.

He said based on Brisbane's population, the service would create 9000 jobs paying $30 an hour, keep local businesses open and be sustainable post-pandemic.

He said the model has been pitched to the government, the tech sector and industry but Queensland had to move fast - within hours and days, not weeks, before local small businesses go under.

Speaking at the QODE Virtual event, Dr Shellshear said the current delivery service model was too complicated for many small businesses, but tapping into the massive new army of employees working from home and a five-minute delivery radius made a flat-fee, 15-minutes-per-job model feasible.

He called on Queensland’s app developers to join the fight to keep businesses going.

He said the app could require drivers to take their temperatures and photos before starting work and automatically log where they had been so authorities could isolate anyone who developed coronavirus and track back their contacts.

“As more and more people working from home instead of working in offices, we have more and more people available to take advantage of these delivery services.

Brisbane AI specialist Dr Evan Shellshear

“We have a unique opportunity to jump on this, before it is too late, to save the businesses that exist around us.

“It’s not just the jobs it will create with delivery drivers in Brisbane, but also the demand it will create to save those small businesses.

“The economics add up, the numbers add up.

“We see countries like Singapore that have been successful in containing the flow of COVID due to measures to track and follow people in their society and make sure isolation occurs when there is risk.

“Let create this delivery economy and save these businesses from going under - not just restaurants and cafes but the person who sells my children’s toys down the road from me.

“I want to be able to order goods from them, I don’t want to see them shut down, I don’t want to see my community out of jobs, my friends out of jobs and my family out of jobs.

“It is important that we take COVID seriously.

“It is important that we socially distance ourselves from one another.

“It is important that we minimise the impact on our healthcare system to ensure the people who need it can get it.

“The delivery economy provide that.

“It provides delivery which minimises social contact, which minimises people having to interact with each other but allows businesses to survive and in fact allows people to grow them.”