Tech board is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Australia’s technology lobby group was likely hoping its annual summit would help address the recent poor media coverage given to the industry. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.

In an effort to avoid criticism about failing to do much poorly behaved limbsthe Tech Council of Australia (TCA) took advantage of its national summit to launch a set of industry standards to “enhance diversity and inclusion in technology.”

We can only imagine the look on TCA CEO Damian Kassabgi’s face when one of the country’s leading venture capitalists, AirTree Ventures partner Craig Blair, blurted out during a panel. According to the ENhis comments suggested that he favored supporting “deeply flawed” company founders and that the industry should look for “problem children around whom we can build incredible cultures.” It’s not exactly a zero-tolerance policy.

Likewise, organizers no doubt hoped that a speech from Victoria’s parliamentary secretary, Bronwyn Halfpenny, would demonstrate the deep, shared views and understanding of industry and government when it comes to technology. This engagement was somewhat undermined by Halfpenny’s references to how the world was being revolutionized by “A1” (instead of AI, presumably) as reported Nine items.

Finally, we learned that Harrison.ai founder Aengus Tran was asked about how his company handles people’s privacy when it comes to AI. According to the founder of one of Australia’s hottest health technology companies, “respecting the privacy and security of patient data is extremely important in the context of what we do.”

This seemed like a good answer, but it’s still a bit flat considering this company’s response to a Crikey investigation showing that patients had no idea that Harrison.ai had used their chest x-ray data to train the AI.

At the time, a company executive told investors internally that he had received sensitive patient data from another company, I-MED, and that questions about how I-MED had obtained were intended for this company. (“The legal basis for Harrison’s use of I-MED data is the data license agreement we have in place, governed by applicable laws.” said Company COO Peter Huynh.) Actually, it’s not our problem.

But hey, maybe Crikey has a different idea of ​​what “respecting data privacy and security” means.

Nice jubby!

Jamie Oliver had quite a journey on his latest trip to Australia. However, this varies depending on who you ask – if you ask The Daily Telegraphit’s “pretty jubbly”. On its front page (although covered by a promotional campaign for the summer of cricket), an interview with the famous British chef by entertainment writer Jonathon Moran, running through Oliver’s favorite restaurants in Sydney and declaring that the port city has “some of the best restaurants.” and produce in the world. He particularly likes Gigi’s pizzeria in Balmain, if you’re wondering.

However, there was no mention of Oliver’s recent misstep. Her second children’s book (everyone writes one these days, right?) was pulled shelves around the world after critical for its portrayal of a First Nations child in foster care, who is kidnapped by the book’s villain because “First Nations children seem to be more connected to nature”. The book is also said to have used the Gamilaroi language (NSW and Queensland) attributed to characters from Mparntwe (Alice Springs).

While The Daily Telegraph made no mention of it, the article stated that the journal would present an award at Oliver’s inaugural lecture. Food Heroes Awards. We asked editor Ben English why he omitted any mention of the withdrawn book and whether he considered the incident important or relevant context for coverage of Oliver’s current tour of Australia. He did not respond for comment.

Publisher Penguin Random House UK (which clarified that the Australian arm of the company was not involved in the release) confirmed to several media outlets: including The guardianthat she did not undertake cultural consultation, and Oliver has since apologized.

A poorly formulated pork barrel

“Greens announce election plan to wipe out all student debt in key Greens seat Wills.”

That was the title of an email sent Monday to reporters in the press gallery from Sen. Mehreen Faruqi’s office. It seemed confusing – and slightly ridiculous – at first. Did the Greens really only offer to wipe out ex-student debt in their target seat of Wills?

But a spokesperson quickly clarified the situation for us: “Sorry for the confusion. The ad aims to erase ALL student debt, but the press will be in Wills’ target seat. The party also invited its candidate for this seat, Samantha Ratnam, to speak at the press conference.

Wills – the central Melbourne electorate which already included trendy neighborhoods like Brunswick – will now also cover “strong Greens voting areas around Brunswick East, Carlton North and Fitzroy North” after a recent redistribution, according to Antony Green, the ABC election guru.

The redrawn map means Labor’s position will be “significantly weakened” and local MP Peter Khalil’s margin in the last election, of 8.6%, would be reduced to around 4.6%, Green wrote.

As for the debt forgiveness plan, it comes a week after Labor announced its own plan to ease graduate debt burdens. Labor’s more modest offer of accepting 20% ​​of loans would eliminate around $16 billion in debt for three million Australians, SBS reports.