South Australia’s brightest young minds will work directly with the world’s leading scientific researchers and developers in the US, under a new agreement signed in Cambridge today.
The State’s university students can now directly engage with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – consistently ranked within the Top 5 of the Times Higher Education World Rankings – following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between South Australia and the globally acclaimed university.
Trade and Investment Minister Nick Champion signed the MIT Connection Science collaboration initiative, which will provide students direct access to MIT knowledge and expertise to help them build digital platforms and applications that are increasingly sought after around the world.
The MoU will also support student exchanges to MIT’s Cambridge campus, further developing connections as part of a global network.
The agreement builds on the ground-breaking MIT Adelaide Living Lab established at Lot Fourteen in 2019, a mass data-crunching lab which continues to drive hi-tech investment and develop technology to ensure safe, secure and ethical use of data.
South Australian data scientist and Doctoral Student, Tobin South, will play a lead role in the project – the twenty-five-year-old is based at MIT and helps manage the Adelaide Living Lab from Cambridge.
Tobin, recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, is in his second year of a five-year placement completing a PhD at MIT’s Media Lab, famous for its innovative research and products.
He works under the tutelage of Professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland, an early pioneer in AI and the father of modern social physics – described by Forbes as one of the “7 most powerful data scientists in the world” and one of the most-cited in his field.
As part of the strengthened MIT connection, Tobin will host Adelaide University students during their exchange trip to Massachusetts in September this year.
Tobin is currently supporting Adelaide University student Peter Moskvichev, who has used AI to build a program that can shape his own future job as a data scientist.
Space, defence and cybersecurity is also a key focus of another Lot Fourteen institute, MITRE, as it looks to expand its presence in South Australia.
While in Washington later this week, Minister Champion and representatives from the Department for Trade and Investment will meet with MITRE – which chose SA as its first international applied research centre – to gain an understanding of how the organisation’s services can support the State’s industry growth.
A trusted partner of the US government in national security and critical infrastructure, MITRE has partnered with the University of Adelaide to help foster the next generation of cybersecurity talent.
Growing the State’s advanced skills base is vital in the wake of the AUKUS agreement, which will create thousands of local jobs and see South Australians constructing the world’s most complex machines – the nuclear-powered submarine.
Images of Tobin and the MIT signing can be found here: dropbox.com/sh/2ei0e9jlca3z729/AAAUe2Lk0NvBCizUbQSNgIFha?dl=0
Quotes
Attributable to Nick Champion
This agreement will empower South Australian students studying data science and computer science degrees to access the very best experts in their fields.
Our brightest young minds can tap into MIT’s unrivalled scientific research and knowledge from a university which is ranked one of the world’s best.
MIT is an ideal partner to establish and implement secure and trusted data systems – the kinds of systems that drive investment and support the jobs of the future.
Protecting these platforms from cybersecurity threats is an important part of our economic growth, so growing our connection with MITRE is another priority.
Attributable to MIT Doctoral Student Tobin South
The world is changing so fast and all universities are focusing on how to keep pace with developments in digital technology, particularly AI.
MIT is at the cutting-edge, with so many incredibly smart people to learn from and exchange ideas with and South Australia is a great place to build technology and platforms, so there’s a role for Australia to play in building secure technology, that enables safe and ethical data sharing.
Attributable to MIT Professor Sandy Pentland
We identified Adelaide early on as the prime location for a Living Lab in Australia and the Indo-Pacific region due to its leadership in data analytics and machine learning.
We have been working with South Australia since 2019 and we are looking forward to an evolution of the Lab that grows with the State’s Data Economy.
Attributable to University of Adelaide student Peter Moskvichev
I’m inspired by MIT's commitment to tackle only the biggest challenges and excited to see the problem-solving process firsthand when I visit the Media Lab later this year.
