Australia’s mining industry has been undergoing a digital transformation for quite some time, and is home to some of the earliest or most ambitious tech-driven mining projects. Now, Australia’s Government and the mining sector are pushing to attract the next generation of data scientists to the mining industry to help maintain Australia’s status as a leader in mining innovation. We take a look at the burgeoning role for data scientists in the mining sector.

Digital and smart technologies in mines have been applied, in varying capacities, across pretty much every aspect of mining operations. Whether it’s smart monitoring for effective drill and blast operations, AI ventilation systems, or automated haul trucks, Australia has been a key proponent for bringing mining into the 21st century. 

A 2020 report from Western Australia’s Data Science Innovation Hub and accountancy firm KPMG predicted that the state will create around 3,000 data science jobs over the next decade, with many of those roles expected to be in the mining industry.

Despite the unique challenges posed to countless industries in 2020, with economies taking hard hits and unemployment figures rising, Australia’s resources sector performed relatively well. 

In a statement in January 2021, Minister for Resources, Water, and Northern Australia Keith Pitt said: “The number of people employed in mining jumped by 22,000, or nearly 10%, in the three months to November last year, providing jobs for 264,000 Australians.”

But the industry needs data scientists, people who can dissect the mass of information that these smart technologies provide, and contribute to improving the efficiency and productivity of mining activities. Unfortunately, those prospective talents, young university students in Australia and abroad, typically don’t tend to consider mining companies as potential career destinations.

Australia’s data science investments

Data science is a blossoming profession, with career prospects across virtually every industry, and certainly industries that appear on the surface to be more exciting and dynamic than the mining industry. For reasons well documented, mining has suffered an image problem over the past few decades.

To draw prospective data scientists to the industry, 2019 saw the announcement of a A$7.67m ($5.92m) investment from the Australian Government to fund two mining research centres, to be developed in partnership with universities and commercial supporters. 

“These centres will help Australia’s mining industry better use data to make evidence-based decisions that lead to more efficient operations,” said then-Education Minister Dan Tehan.

One of these centres, based at the University of Adelaide, received A$3.7m from the Australian Government, along with a further A$8.8m provided from other supporters of the initiative. The centre was given a mission to train the “next generation” of data scientists and engineers in artificial intelligence, data analytics, and advanced sensor systems, in order to increase value in the mining and processing of resources. 

These were identified as priority areas for the mining industry to become a world leader in integrated mining, as well as becoming a global hub for the supply of digital mining equipment, technology, and services.

The University of Sydney, meanwhile, was provided a different mandate. Australia gave A$3.9m in funding to the institute, to go towards funding an A$11m data science centre to support the broader management of Australia’s natural resources. The Data Analytics for Resources and Environments Centre aims to develop and deliver the data science skills and toolsets for Australia’s resource sector to properly steward the nation’s resources and environment. 

Using advanced modelling, it’s hoped that this centre will equip the industry with the understanding of the cumulative effects of its consumption of natural resources – potentially allowing for new solutions to water management or biodiversity loss, as well as the societal and economic impacts of mining operations.

As for the future, a spokesperson for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy, and Resources says that the department is “developing an Australian National Resources Workforce Strategy that will address the key challenges and opportunities for the resources workforce into the future, including the uptake of digital technologies.

“The Australian Government has also contributed A$30m to the construction of CQUniversity’s School of Mining and Manufacturing (CQUSMM). The project will support the construction of two new purpose-built education and training facilities and the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment to support the skills training, education, research, and workforce development needs of the mining, resources, and manufacturing sectors.”

The spokesperson says that the project will have a focus on industry skills related to the advancement of robotics, the use of AI, and drone and remote vehicle use.

The need for data scientists in mining

Data analytics have been growing in importance for businesses and industries around the world; the insights garnered from mass data collection can increase efficiencies, identify new markets, or reveal previously unforeseen business directions. The mining industry is no stranger to numbers – companies in this industry rise and fall off of the number of tonnes of materials they can pull up from the ground in relation to numbers fronted by dollar signs.

But the mining industry has been relatively slow on the uptake of in-depth analysis of data – potentially leaving money on the table in the form of untapped efficiency enhancements, potentially decreased costs, and across-the-board improvements in decision making.

Virtually every stage of the mining process could stand to benefit from better gathering and analysis of data. In 2020, the South Australia government partnered with open innovation platform Unearthed Solutions to launch a global exploration competition to help identify potential in the resource-rich Gawler region. 

The Gawler Challenge made the region’s data set accessible to competition entrants, who had five months to search through a range of data sets to identify exploration targets. The eventual winner of the challenge, an international team of researchers known as Per-OZ, used a method that integrated mineral systems and geomechanics with machine learning techniques.

“Globally, it’s becoming harder to find new mineral deposits, and the next generation of discoveries will need to go beyond traditional geology,” South Australia’s Minister for Energy and Mining Dan van Holst Pellekaan said. 

“The analysis of this information treasure trove by data and geoscientists in just five months is an amazing leap forward in the use of artificial intelligence, machine-learning algorithms, and alternative mathematical data analysis for the mining sector.”

With new, quality mineral deposits increasingly difficult to find, data scientists could be vital in allowing mining companies to find the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Then, once data analysis has unearthed a potentially lucrative deposit and a mine has been established on site, monitoring the data from smart ventilation systems can improve air quality, increase worker safety, and reduce the costs associated with ventilation. 

Analysing the data from smart drill and blast systems can allow for more efficient use of explosives and reduce workers’ exposure to hazardous materials; and the data fed back from digitised mine equipment may allow for an accurate prediction of when a piece of equipment or machinery is likely to fail.

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CA has become an early-stage investor in Melbourne-based Sonnant Pty Ltd, a transformational artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) company that provides content discovery for the spoken word. 

According to the GfK Australian Share of Audio 2019, consumption of digital audio is growing in Australia and is expected to reach 80% of the population by 2024 and SCA’s recent launch of LiSTNR is designed to be a best in class consumer digital audio experience. 

SCA’s in-house technical capability will be enhanced by Sonnant’s AI intelligence, providing an in-depth of understanding of SCA content that allows for rich meta data and exciting new user experiences. 

Sonnant allows SCA to enhance the key product pillars of LiSTNR delivering a personalised experience to each user based on the topics they most enjoy listening to.

SCA Head of Digital and Innovation, Chris Johnson, says “SCA is a proud supporter of the Australian entrepreneurial ecosystem, so when we found a company of Sonnant’s calibre in Melbourne, we knew that an investment partnership would provide significant long term value to both parties.

“We were delighted when Sonnant’s tech outperformed several ‘off the shelf’ products we pitted it against in testing. Even better that they were right in our own backyard! The partnership demonstrates our commitment to not just delivering engaging digital products but building the technical capabilities that power market leading platforms today.” 

Sonnant CEO, Tony Simmons (pictured right), says: “Technology now allows us to do things with the spoken word that was merely science fiction a few short years ago. Sonnant has long recognised that the consumption of audio, especially the need for better audience discovery of relevant content with podcasts, can greatly benefit by our exacting AI processes.  

“Importantly, by applying Sonnant’s machine learning, SCA will reduce manual processes and SCA customers and advertisers will experience more precise results in a shorter period of time. We are very excited for the opportunity to work with Australia’s pre-eminent media organisation to create even better listener experiences and a high degree of engagement.” 

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The racial profiling and police brutality in the George Floyd incident and #BlackLivesMatter protests and rioting unfolded debate on many levels. One of them is flaws in Artificial Intelligence that end up creating a racial bias in technology which is deemed as an instrumental force to bring digital age. However, all hope is not lost, especially in the Australian start-up sector.

Presenting, Akin and Unleash Live, AI-backed companies founded by Liesl Yearsley and Hanno Blankenstein respectively. While Akin, uses AI to build bots that can converse with humans in a lifelike way, Unleash Live employs AI for real-time analysis of video footage coming from security cameras and drones. Both of these companies were founded with a common mission to have an excellent ethical AI culture as well as one that caters to good business policies. Therefore, neither of the companies uses any personal information to manipulate nor ‘keep an eye on’ the public.

Yearsley had previously sold her AI company, Cognea Artificial Intelligence, to IBM in 2014. Later after a brief hiatus, she came out of her retirement to establish Akin. She learned about the ability of AI to manipulate human behavior to questionable or unsustainable ends while building customer service bots at Cognea. This happens because, unlike humans, AI bots are programmed to optimize themselves towards a goal continuously.

“AI, it turns out, has a frightening ability to bring about change in human behavior,” she says.

“Those customer service bots are used for tasks such as encouraging consumers to take on more credit card debt, were already capable of altering people’s behavior by anywhere between 30 percent and 200 percent,” she adds.

Meanwhile, Sydney based Unleash Live, denied to be involved in using AI that uses personal information. Instead, its AI analyzes video feed inputs from a security camera to help a city decide whether footpaths should be made wider or to detect that hordes of people are running from some incident that law enforcement or emergency services should be notified about. The company’s selling point is that it will never collect nor analyze personal information. Hence it is free from the possibility to be used by the government to identify people.

In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Blankenstein said, “Not only were the ethical implications of mass, computer-based surveillance too troubling but, in any event, that market was already saturated with powerful companies that were all too willing to provide the technology to governments and police forces around the world.”

Such a type of ethical use of AI is crucial now than ever. After the outrage over George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, Minnesota, leaders in technology corporations are contemplating whether to continue providing services like facial recognition to the law enforcement unit. After such eye-opener incidents, which include recent mess by Microsoft’s editor AI, tech majors like IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft have currently withdrawn their AI services for mass surveillance, last week. The call for a humanistic, neutral, or lesser biased AI is louder and clear than ever. The pressure is mounting on government across the US and other regions to come up with better regulation for AI.

According to Toby Walsh, professor, the University of NSW, “Such AI-based surveillance systems are now at risk of becoming ‘toxic assets’ for the companies that develop and sell them, to the point where many companies will be forced to abandon the technology altogether. He further points out that face recognition along with other misuses of surveillance is going to be a topic that will trouble us increasingly.

Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, Edward Santow firmly believes that Australia can position itself also position itself as a supplier of ethically safe technology, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence. Just like it did in positioning itself as a supplier of safe food to the world. And with companies like Akin and Unleash Live, this future is not far from becoming a reality.

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