Glen Boreham

Managing Director, IBM Australia and New Zealand
BEc (Syd)

Glen Boreham addressed graduates from the Faculty of Business at the Great Hall, City campus, University of Technology, Sydney on Friday 8 May 2009, 2.30pm.

About the speaker

Glen Boreham is the Managing Director of IBM Australia and New Zealand. He was appointed to this role in January 2006 and manages a business of nearly 15,000 employees with annual revenues of $4 billion.

Since 1986, Glen has held senior positions in IBM across sales, general management, business development and operations. He has substantial global experience.

In June 2008, he was appointed to serve as the inaugural Chair of Screen Australia - the Australian Government's agency responsible for developing a competitive film and television industry, while providing support for projects of cultural significance.

In addition, Glen is a member of the Business Council of Australia and is Deputy Chairman of the Australian Information Industry Association. He serves on the Board of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and is a Governor of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia.

In 2007, Glen was named by the Australian Financial Review in the top five most powerful leaders in information industries. In April 2008, he participated in the Australian Government's 2020 Summit, working on the future of the Australian economy.

Glen has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney, and has completed a Managing Director's programme from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Speech

Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, members of Council, staff, distinguished guests, very particularly graduates, your families and friends, ladies and gentlemen.

When I think back to my graduation in 1986 ... back then I couldn't imagine the world we live in today

When I was interviewed by IBM on campus at careers week ... they got in touch with me following the interview by sending a paper telegram — many of you here probably don't know what that is!

Back in 1986, we didn't have mobile phones — or the very few that did had phones the size (and weight!) of a brick — well beyond the budget of a university student ...

Back then, the internet hadn't even been invented! Second life, facebook, you tube, text, chat, social media ... this was all the stuff of science fiction ...

In 1986, if you wanted to find a reference for an essay you walked down to the library and spent hours leafing through a pile of books or microfiche. Today you throw a few key words into Google and get millions of possibilities from around the world in less than a second.

It is simply astonishing the difference technology makes: My 12 year olds are producing more professional looking school projects than I produced in my first decade of business!

The new century has created breathtaking change and amazing opportunities — as well as new challenges.

Today, you are facing one of those challenges. For the first time in 18 years, people are joining the workforce at a time when the economy isn't growing ... and I expect many will view this with concern

So, I thought today, I'd give you my view of the current economic crisis ...

At IBM, we've never seen a crisis as a bad thing. We take the Chinese view ... the Chinese word for crisis is made up of two symbols: one for threat; yes but also one for opportunity.

We have always seen a crisis as a time of change and therefore enormous opportunity.

IBM is still hiring — in fact we've hired 150 graduates so far this year!

And we're working with technology that we believe will soon be absolutely critical to Australia — and the world.

It's technology that will make our country — and our planet — Smarter.

What do I mean by Smarter?

Well, think about it this way. Right now, the systems on which our economy depends — transport, energy and water — were developed in a different age and are dumb.

When I say 'dumb', I don't mean stupid or even poor ... I mean 'unaware'. Dumb systems can't sense what's going on, they don't tell us very much, they can't respond and fix the problem when something goes wrong.

So, if you leave the lights on when you go out — the electricity grid will continue to power them. It doesn't have the intelligence to know you aren't home and the electricity isn't needed.

The water system happily pumps thousands of litres out of a broken pipe onto a road. Last year, leaks and burst pipes cost Melbourne 50 billion litres of water1 enough to supply the city for more than a month.

And households are only a tiny part of our water system. Irrigated agriculture accounts for 70% of Australia's freshwater use. Currently, the Murray Goulburn irrigation system wastes more water than Melbourne uses in a year.

In transport, without change, by 2020 the Government estimates congestion will cost us over $20 billion.

And in IT, the amount of energy currently wasted by computer servers

around the world, would power Australia2.

So what's the answer?

The answer is to make all of those systems smarter ... to embed technology — computer chips, sensors, RFID tags — into our electricity grids, water networks, roads, buildings and cities ...

This is already happening in an adhoc way: By next year there will be one billion transistors per person on the planet. There are already chips in your car, your phone, every electronic device, even in building materials.

Wireless technology and the internet mean those things can now talk to each other and communicate back to us.

And we have supercomputers that can now analyse all that information and use it for the first time to make smarter decisions.

But now we need to make all this technology work together and deliberately build it into our country — to make Australia Smarter.

It's already happening around the world.

In Stockholm, where traffic was growing by 18% every year, a smart transport system has cut traffic by a quarter and reduced carbon dioxide levels by 40%.

Denmark's largest energy company has already built an intelligent grid that is halving outages.

And Australia has made a start. Country Energy is building an intelligent electricity grid. The University of Melbourne is developing a smart water system for farmers in the Murray Goulburn area.

I believe there will be more projects like these, because the economic crisis has put Australia in a position where we have to change.

We can no longer afford to waste our resources ... to have inefficient transport systems ... to lose the billions of dollars the current systems cost our economy every year.

And so, despite the economic gloom, I am optimistic. I believe the current crisis will drive change in Australia. I believe it will drive us to make this country smarter — which will boost our economy and improve our standard of living.

And you should enter the workforce with confidence, as I know first hand over the 23 years since I graduated, the economy moves in cycles through the good and bad times. But there are always plenty of opportunities for smart business graduates with a 'can do' attitude.

So I congratulate you on your graduation and I welcome you into the world of business at a time of great change and great opportunity.

Your fresh thinking and exciting ideas are exactly what Australia needs right now.

I hope you will go out with confidence and make change happen.

While this is a time to celebrate your graduation, I know through my time at university, today is also an opportunity to recognise the family and friends who have supported you through this journey and I offer you all my congratulations.

Thank you.