Dr Paul Beinat

I came to UTS to undertake a PhD relatively late in life compared to most graduates. I was running a software company I had started almost ten years earlier, and had a history of building novel artificial intelligence-based systems for the insurance industry. I had finished a large development project, which was to be adopted by many insurance companies, and had started to do some research into machine learning.

Given my background in industry, I was struck by the differences at the university. It’s not that one is good and the other bad – they are just very different. At UTS, there are so many people interested in so many things, and they are very capable people. This was a very different dynamic, made possible without the shackles of industry.

I discovered that UTS is a large resource. There is a treasure trove of documented research, in a rich variety of fields, some of which I had not even considered previously. 

UTS opened my mind to many new and varied aspects of computer science, with knowledgeable people to discuss these with. It was an opportunity not to be missed. I am so glad that I attended UTS, and that I’m still associated with it today.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics in the 1970s. As part of that degree, we had to learn to code in Fortran, on error-prone optical cards. I hated it. It was, at the time, far removed from the concepts of mathematics that I was interested in. I decided that programming was not for me. It was boring.

After graduating, my first job was as a computer programmer! I learned Cobol and could immediately see the value in it for data processing. I eventually worked on very large programs that were challenging to debug and I had to learn how to read memory dumps.

I attained mastery over this subject matter – over time, of course. It was a valuable lesson. What had seemed so boring at university turned into my career. It required ongoing education, because technology didn’t stand still – and it certainly doesn’t today. I had to learn how to work in teams, and eventually how to lead teams. But it became a great career.

I think it’s common for goals to change throughout life. At the start of my career, I aspired to climb the IT management ladder. In my early thirties I had achieved that. I found that once attained, it was not the goal that I wanted.

I decided that I wanted to build something that represented some new capability, so I took an interest in AI. Later, I was fortunate to be hired to build what would become Colossus, reportedly the insurance industry’s largest expert system in the world at the time. I then founded my own company and a series of new and more advanced systems followed.

Now my goal is to build new algorithms that try to solve completely new problems. There’s a pleasure in creating something new and seeing how it works. Ultimately I would like to leave some sort of a mark, so that others can see what I did. After all, without wishing to be maudlin, one day we shall all draw our last breath – and on that day we had better be satisfied with what we did. 

Anyone who has married and had children will understand the profound changes these entail. With each, one’s life become less self-focussed and ever more about family. 

In a career sense, the most profound change came after the development of Colossus. It soon gained traction in the US insurance market, with companies paying large licence fees to use it. I went from the person who built it to the person everyone wanted to talk to. I spent the next six years travelling the globe – talking with insurance executives, and even foreign government ministers, and speaking at conferences, mostly in the US and later in Europe.

Consequently, when I decided to start my own company, there was immediate interest from US software companies for collaboration opportunities. This was to be a feature of the next twenty years, as we decided that we would only do business overseas. A series of successful software products followed, however I am most pleased that we brought many millions of dollars of export income into the country.

This is aimed at the graduates who want interesting work and to make a difference, not merely attending while the time passes: there’s no substitute for knowing your subject matter thoroughly, regardless of whether it is IT or engineering related. This is key as we strive to exercise our competence throughout our working life.

In order to have an interesting and productive career, one also has to grow as an individual. Some of this growth will require an ongoing commitment to education. The pace of change will not relent in the future. Technology will bring ever more encroachment into our working lives, but also opportunities to solve new problems. To stay relevant, and to be able to take opportunities when they arise, new skills are an essential enabler. This will be all the more positive an experience if one has the openness to embrace new work challenges, collaboration opportunities, and even working environments. 

Finally, a determination to succeed is a very desirable virtue. Many employers look for people who are determined to succeed, hire them first, and pay them more. If entrepreneurship is what you want, then a determination to overcome obstacles is vital.

While my early career was a traditional IT one, in the early eighties I became interested in artificial intelligence. It was my career focus from then on, but it required careful study and thoughtful application.

The 1980s were characterised by knowledge and inferencing, used to create expert systems. A life insurance underwriting system written in OPS5 followed, and in the late eighties I started building what would become Colossus. Each required a new way of thinking and involving new capabilities. In building Colossus, I also had to learn about traumatic and reconstructive medicine, because it was to be an expert in personal injury claims.

In the mid-nineties I became interested in machine learning. I had to acquire new skills in induction and artificial neural networks. Eventually this led to the creation of novel forms of artificial neural networks, and new learning algorithms that would work on the noisy data. The result would later become Talon, software that underpinned a US company, EagleEye Analytics. In 2015 it won the Vanguards Predictive Analytics award, voted on by insurance companies in the US. I was appointed as EagleEye Analytics’ chief scientist, a fun job indeed.

While I’m well towards the twilight of my career, I’m still trying to learn new things, like how to measure the manifold of data. The more I learn, the more I am aware of my ignorance.

I would like to see more local students do higher degrees, and especially PhDs. We have world-class research centres and institutes at UTS, but undergraduate students in general are not exposed to these interesting places. They often don’t get to see the opportunities that come from participating in research-based ventures. Local PhD graduates also enhance local industry, and in some cases find opportunities overseas.

I would also like to see a more sophisticated industry. I would like to see us create things. Whether this is software, engineered products, or processing raw materials into valuable products. Our industry, left to its own devices, will not achieve these changes. We have to engage more with industry to build the capability to transform what we do as a nation.

I think that it depends on the individual. If the goal is to eventually become the CTO, CIO or even the CDO, then a carefully chosen career path is going to be required. Along the way some new skills will have to be acquired. Perhaps the most difficult thing for graduates of a science-based discipline is a mastery of management. The transition is not an easy one. One has to relinquish the technical proficiency, and its upkeep, to focus instead on how to achieve through others. These are very different skills.

My own career has been more like the twists and turns referred to. Not personally content with the management roles I attained, I gravitated back to technical proficiency. I have had a very stimulating career, starting with my interest in artificial intelligence. I’ve had the opportunity to design and build systems that have been sold around the world. I started my own company, rather late in life at 41, which lasted more than 20 years. 

Whichever path you take, it’s not going to be set in stone. It’s a great time to be alive. Enjoy the journey!