Grok Academy has launched the DigiTech Applied Challenges project at the EduTech conference in Melbourne with the backing of Amazon Web Services, Telstra, Accenture and Commonwealth Bank.
The project entails a digital skills challenge that will be free to schools across Australia to plug a critical gap in teaching and attract thousands of students needed as future technology professionals.
Australia requires an additional 286,000 workers and 12,000 students to enter the sector by 2025 to keep up with demand, according to the Tech Council of Australia.
“Teachers do need help,” James Curran, chief executive of Grok Academy, told AAP.
“A child could come in knowing more than the teachers and that’s a bit confronting.”
Curran said federal, state and territory education officials needed to do more, but industry could develop real-world content to get students thinking and designing, and to support teachers.
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“Design thinking, user interface and user experience, cloud computing, data analytics – they’re all huge areas in their own right that teachers don’t know much about, and that kids are going to enjoy learning,” he said.
The challenge aligns with the school curriculum from year 5 to years 9 and 10, and could get parents thinking about supporting a career in tech for their child.
“It’s a challenge of the modern era that kids need to deal with, starting at school,” Curran said.
He expects many state, independent and Catholic schools to participate.
Using a similar model, the academy’s cyber project has had more than 200,000 enrolments since it was launched in 2019.
Not to be confused with tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes’ investment vehicle Grok Ventures, Grok Academy is a charity focused on computer education.
The word “grok” was coined in the 1960s by a science fiction writer and adopted within tech to mean understanding thoroughly and with empathy, and experiencing joy in technology.
