Meeting this objective requires a sustainable talent pool with the capability, awareness, and preparedness to adopt and leverage advancing technology.

To address this, CEI:AgER is delivering as part of Grain Automate Program 1:

1) Developing capability, awareness, and preparedness for autonomy in the tertiary education sector

This requires supporting education and training on two fronts: i) prepare the workforce on the emerging technologies; ii) address the massive shortage of new professionals. We are developing micro-credentials to meet these needs: i) educational material to upskill tertiary students and workforce; and ii) ‘train the trainers’, to upgrade secondary teachers so they can teach new agriculture curricula and prepare and excite students about the future of agriculture.

Alongside other initiatives (e.g. student events) this will support growers and industry in building the needed knowledge, understanding and capabilities to implement more advanced and profitable applications of machine and implement automation; while also expanding the pipeline of students entering agriculture and ensuring the talent pool exists to support the future of the Grains industry. The key project outcomes will be micro-credential resources applicable across students, educators and workforce (current and future), that scaffold the learning journey based on grower/learner circumstances or aspirations. These will be deployed through UWA’s established “UWA Plus” micro-credential framework.