Dr Ray Owen

Firstly, I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. I’d also like to acknowledge the Pro Chancellor, Provost, Director, Dean of the Faculty, Member of Academic Board, staff, family, friends and, of course, the graduates. I’m honoured to be here to address you on such a great day. 

I think there’s nearly 200 students in engineering and information technology reaching what can only be described as one of the pinnacles in your academic studies. Now, when I researched how to make an occasional address at such an event, and this is a first for me, I learned that one should aim to impart some lessons that will be useful to all of you in the next steps in your career. Now, I don’t profess to have a great wealth of experience in career management. To date, I’ve lived in four countries, worked in research, sales and general management, and ended up being responsible for the technology in the NBN network, probably one of the most controversial infrastructure projects in Australia in recent times. So, consistency has not been one of my strong points. 

However, one of the things I love doing most is reading. So, that being the case, I thought I would impart some lessons I have learned through books that influenced and helped me throughout my career. Now, at this point, you probably all feel like experts in your field, and you should do on a day like today. In fact, according to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, you certainly would have put in more than 10,000 hours of study to get you here to graduation. This 10,000 hours of practice would, in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, qualify you as an expert in your field. However, there is one thing I have learned over many hours of pretending to be that expert in the field of technology: the truth of the matter is, is that the knowledge you have gained gives you the license to interact with your colleagues at work, but how you fare in your career will be determined by the relationships you drive with that knowledge. 

Recently, I did what we call a lunch and learn session with the Chief Financial Officer of the National Broadband Network to impart some of the technical knowledge I have accumulated over the last 25 years. And I told him one thing that made him smile, and that’s not easy with someone responsible for nearly 50 billion dollars of public money. I revealed the secret of engineering acronyms that sometimes eve we don’t understand, and that has made his life very difficult with nearly 4000 engineers at NBN. As you will be aware, we engineers make up a lot of industry acronyms, and there are many reasons for this. It adds confusion, mystifies what we do and in some ways, protects the knowledge to the lucky few who understand. And we’re not alone. The legal, finance and even medical fields all follow the same practice, as we accumulate more expertise and practise, our secret language industry acronyms become more prevalent in our day-to-day interactions. Now, one genuinely useful skill you can learn is how to communicate knowledge effectively and simply to the outside world, and not with those acronyms.

I’m sure that for many of you here today, it will be crucial in your ultimate success throughout your career. So, just as Malcolm Gladwell talked about the 10,000 hours to become a true expert, another author, Bill George, wrote a book that has had a profound effect on me, and I wish I’d read it earlier in my career. It is called True North, and it’s about displaying your personal values in your leadership style. In my career, I’ve been very lucky enough to meet some really great leaders, and there is one thing I have noticed that they have in common. They display and openly communicate their true values as a person. 

At UTS, you have the values of discovering and sharing knowledge, engaging and collaborating with each other, delivering on obligations and sustainability for a positive future. I would encourage you all to consider and reflect upon what it is that you stand for. Once you have and know what your personal values are, write them down and never compromise on them. One thing I can tell you all here today is that if you ever do compromise your values for that job with the higher salary or that position that means so much to you, you’ll never be truly happy with yourself. But it is not just about how you feel about yourself, but about how others will perceive, read and understand you. The truth of the matter is that if people understand your decisions through the values you display in your conduct, irrespective of whether they agree or disagree with your decisions, they will support and respect you. In my short experience with such great leaders I’ve worked with, they all hold fundamental values they openly communicate and practise in their professional and personal lives. You may ask yourself here today, is that really relevant in today’s technology world? And I would say more so than ever. Your own values will not only distinguish you from others, but from artificial intelligence machines that will collectively make a lot more decisions for us in the future.

The last book I want to talk about today is an ancient one, and it’s normally applied to the graduates of medicine, but I feel needs a little bit of updating. So, I’m going to quote something from a Wikipedia reference on the Hippocratic Oath: ‘The Hippocratic Oath is historically taken by physicians. It’s one of the most widely known of Green medical texts. In its original form, it requires a new physician to swear by a number of healing gods to uphold specific ethical standards. The Oath is the earliest expression of medical ethics in the western world, establishing several principles of medical ethics, which remain of paramount significance today. Although the ancient text is only of historic and symbolic value, swearing a modified form of the Oath remains a rite of passage for medical graduates in many countries today.’ 

Now, it struck me, when I graduated from university over 25 years ago, that even today, medical doctors hold the respect because they do no harm. Their profession and oath would never allow it. This is an age where many professions have been through turmoil, examples being bankers in the Global Financial Crisis; financial planners, as we’ve seen in the Royal Commission; and dare I say, coming from the NBN, politicians. As graduate engineers and scientists, more than ever we need a Hippocratic Oath equivalent. The potential harm, but also conversely, the huge amount of good you could do over the next 30 years will be profound. The influence that you will have over the world with the knowledge you have gained here at UTS and the careers you will enter into will be enormous.

Now, I understand this is probably not something you’re concerned with, coming out of university where possibly you have some debt and a yearning to earn some money to pay off that first-class education at UTS. However, it’s certainly something I would love you all to think about. You’re leaving here with an extraordinary ability to change and influence the world, so it is important that you do that with the right values in place. Now, you may ask how these last three books have influenced me to take on one of the most challenging, politically motivated projects in Australian history – the National Broadband Network. I was certainly lucky enough last year to have many choices in my next position, but I chose to take on the NBN challenge because I felt I had something to add technically to the project – to demystify the confusion in the public eyes. I felt I had the ability to exercise some fundamental values I hold in being fair, in helping to bridge the digital divide and finally, despite all the politics and negativity around the NBN, I’m doing something good for Australia in the long run.
So, to summarise my short address, I would say, congratulations. Today, you’ve earned your place as an expert in engineering and science. Take that knowledge you have gained and share it simply. Understand, communicate and keep your true values as a person, and finally, never forget your obligation to make our communities and your country a better place. Thank you.