Last November, Australian Regional AI Network (ARAIN), launched its ‘AI adopt centres’, with the first one in Morwell, Victoria, acting as a testing ground for other centres to be established in regional Australian locations.
The centres will help farmers incorporate artificial intelligence solutions programs that can reason and make decisions into their land and business operations, in a safe and practical manner.
ARAIN head of operations, Emily Loving, said the focus was on educating small-to-medium businesses across the farming, mining, fisheries, and forestry sectors.
“There’s a lot of precision technologies out there to focus on productivity, but there’s a lot of ‘lower hanging fruit’ in the day-to-day, that AI can help with,” Ms Loving said.
“It could be to do with team utilisation, scheduling, accounting platforms – there’s lots of talk about AI tackling big problems, but we’re focusing on the first quarter, the first half of the year, and what we can do to help with the easy tasks so you can be more productive.”
On Thursday, February 20, ARAIN will host its first key event, an hour-and-a-half online seminar with a particular focus on practical applications of AI programs.
The key speaker of the event will be Skills GPT head of innovation, Jonas Christensen, who teaches AI literacy to various sectors, and ARAIN team member Ben Finkel, who has an ag background.
Maintaining tight cyber security will be a key point of the seminar.
“There will also be suggestions of how you could implement AI into your business looking at different ideas from business planning, marketing, how to improve staff productivity, and another key area is Environmental Social and Governance reporting,” Ms Loving said.
Since the launch of the pilot AI adopt centre in Morwell, Ms Loving said one of the areas ARAIN has had feedback on is the difficulty with ESG related reporting.
It’s especially pertinent since the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Bill passed in Parliament in September last year and has come into effect as of January 1.
The legislation marks a shift in the way small-to-medium businesses are to prepare their annual reporting suite, and the businesses affected will be required to include disclosures on climate-related risks and opportunities.
“A lot of people don’t know how to go about that in terms of where to start, what it entails, and there’s a wariness that the new reporting requirements are a big unknown,” she said.
ARAIN is looking to develop “a calendar of events” and go into the regional areas.
“We’re looking at designing some no-code hackathons, and key events where people can come and learn more,” she said.
Ms Loving urged those interested to book a call with team members if they want to learn more about how they can use AI.
News source:https://www.farmweekly.com.au/story/8862818/arains-online-seminar-to-prepare-businesses-for-new-paradigm
