Tech’s ‘Indigenous lives matter’ moment

Non-profits like Indigitek say they’ve been overwhelmed by support, but need it to translate into a lasting economic impact.

The Indigitek team. Photographer: Wayne Quilliam

Australia needs to capitalise on its ‘Indigenous lives matter’ moment and help focus on training up young Indigenous tech professionals, according to the co-founder of tech-focused non-profit Indigitek.

Liam Ridgeway, who was previously Microsoft Australia‘s first Indigenous employee, told The Australian that technology will have an outsizes role in helping solve some of the Indigenous communities’ most pressing issues, including underemployment and a lack of education.

He pointed to statistics showing that STEM professions will make up an estimated 75 per cent of the Australian workforce by 2025, but only 43 per cent of Aboriginal children graduate high school having studied a STEM subject.

Indigitek co-founder Liam Ridgeway. Source: Supplied.

“Young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this space are really interested in tech, but they don‘t always have the confidence or the belief to actually pursue it,” he said. ”We want to show them ’here’s the path you can take’, and give them a place where they can network with like-minded people and meet other Aboriginal people who also happen to be nerds.”

Mr Ridgeway said Indigitek began as five people in a pub talking about an idea, and they‘ve now grown to around 140 members, and have official charity status. Indigtek helps connect Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander Australians with tech companies and vice versa.

Advocacy groups including Indigtek say they’ve been overwhelmed with support following Black Lives Matter rallies across the world, including in Australia.

Indigitek co-founder Ben Armstrong said STEM pathways can help address some of the local Indigenous community‘s biggest challenges, and give them extra support networks to lean on.

Indigitek co-founder Ben Armstrong. Source: Supplied.

“Indigenous people are some of the fastest adopters of tech,” Mr Armstrong said. ”But there are a lot of challenges, from metropolitan to rural and remote. There are education challenges, economic challenges, as well as challenges around opportunity, visibility and representation.

“Tech has a really important role to play in tackling these challenges, when we‘re looking forward at the future of jobs and the future of our country. New roles are going to be tech-based, and our younger Indigenous people are going to need that to drive them forward.”

He added that technology has helped Indigenous communities retain ownership of their data and IP, which includes things like Aboriginal languages and knowledge, some of which is thousands of years old.

“Tech gives us an ability to retain our culture, as well as share it with the great wide world,” he said.

“There are sometimes threats and challenges involved with non-Indigenous people coming in, and copyrighting things that never belonged to them. Tech helps us retain our culture and hold onto it.”

According to Mr Ridgeway, companies are often well-intentioned when wanting to hire Indigenous talent, but they have a responsibility to help build the pipeline rather than just cherry pick candidates.

“We love the enthusiasm, but we‘re on the journey as well in terms of finding the talent,” he said. ”We want companies to go on this journey with us to build up the pipeline of talent in this space, and look at things like training programs that we can do.

“We want to go on a shared journey towards structural change.”