Language of the future
Coding is the language of the future. Melanie Burgess reports
Canadian Tanmay Bakshi, 13, built his first app at age 9, and is on a mission to get 100,000 kids excited about careers in technology.
JUST as people work better together if they speak a common language, humans preparing to work side-by-side with robots would do well to learn to code. The Foundation for Young Australians report The New Work Smarts predicts better programming and technology design skills will be a high priority in the future.
It forecasts the average Australian worker will use 80 per cent more science and maths and 75 per cent more advanced technology skills by the year 2030, increasing to a dedicated nine hours a week and seven hours a week, respectively.
IBM Research vice president Joanna Batstone says artificial intelligence (AI) will drive future jobs so it is important to start focusing on the skills that will be needed – such as coding.
“We need to accelerate the technical talents to allow employers, employees and students to take advantage,” she says.
“The industries we know today are fundamentally based on the world of code. We want to encourage younger kids, students and uni students to continue to enhance those skills that will be needed for the workplace of the future.”
Batstone says the jobs of tomorrow will be different to today’s but that has always been the case. Data and cyber security are expected to be major areas of employment demand.
Batstone says the specific coding languages that are needed change over time but a helpful language to start with is Java or Python.
“The world of AI is based around designing algorithms that will enable us to build cognitive systems that interact and reason and learn and engage in a computer-human-machine interaction style,” she says.
“The way to get into that field is to learn any coding language then build skills that enable you to learn programming methods, tools and software development techniques.”
An extra 15,100 software and applications programmers are forecast to be needed across Australia in the five years to May, 2022, Employment Department figures show.
Most programming jobs are in the professional, scientific and technical services sector (about 57 per cent).