Where does the land of opportunity lie for ICT graduates?

It’s an age-old question for recent graduates looking for work – are they better off going for a private job or entering the public sector?

After graduating high school in 2022, Oscar Brown dove into the higher education bracket, studying full time towards a Bachelor of Philosophy. Despite the name, he says the degree is based on combining different sciences with independent research.

Acting quickly on an insider tipoff, Trellis Data reached out to Oscar.

The local specialist dubbed him a “homegrown wonder-kid” while he was still in high school. It led to Oscar’s first soiree with AI and machine learning in the form of an onsite internship with the Trellis team.

Oscar is now part of a dedicated research team with an exciting career ahead, working in the emerging field of AI.

“I have a great interest in maths and physics, so leaning into AI and machine learning was a pretty natural progression,” he says.

“I’m very lucky to be working with some amazing mentors who are truly at the cutting edge of AI and across the latest programming techniques.

“I’m currently working with AI transcription and large language models (similar to Chat GPT) to improve their accuracy and speed, train them with less data, and have them use less space so they don’t require as much expensive hardware to operate.”

Oscar definitely supports working in the private sector. He says the flexibility of his role with Trellis lets him work on important innovations for the future.

“I feel like in the private sector, there’s more opportunity for funding to be put towards research and innovation. My impression is that the public sector is more focussed on getting solutions to current issues, rather than foreseeing future challenges and trying to get ahead of the curve,” he says.

“Investing in machine learning research lets us work out how we can push the boundaries of AI and machine learning in Canberra, and try to get ahead of what our customers will need down the line.

“AI is extremely open-ended because it evolves so quickly. There are many areas nobody has really researched before. Every few months, there might be a new thing for me to work on and that’s really exciting for me.”

A fiercely pro-Canberra organisation, Trellis Data makes investing in and developing the skills of local emerging talent a huge priority.

“When we discovered Oscar and his ability to grapple with this constantly changing technology, we knew he would be a perfect fit for the team,” head of communications, Tim McLaren says.

“It’s important to identify people who can be future experts in the space, because as you can imagine, they can be quite tricky to find in an industry where one size never fits all.

“Whether students and graduates approach the public or private sector for work depends on what they’re looking to get out of their role. Public service jobs are always going to be a safe bet, but I think we offer a uniquely innovative workplace and cutting-edge products to work on.”

Trellis Data specialises in offering secure AI solutions rolled out at an enterprise level. With clients in security, surveillance, law enforcement, government and logistics, Tim believes bespoke solutions are the way to go.

“Anyone can go online and start to use a free AI tool within minutes, but that kind of off-the-shelf product isn’t a good fit for the industries we work within,” he says.

“For these clients, accuracy and transparency is paramount. They also have to be very careful about where their data is going and how it’s being used, whether it’s present in translation, transcription, document creation, data analysis or something else entirely.

“The work done by researchers like Oscar helps make sure decision makers in Australia’s critical infrastructure can trust their machine learning. It’s a frontier the private sector thrives in.”

Find out more about local, secure AI and machine learning solutions online at Trellis Data.

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