Meet your Australians - 2025 QLD Australian of the Year Geoffrey Smith. ACM is proud to be media partner for the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards.
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00:00In 2020, we started a not-for-profit social enterprise called Australian Spatial Analytics
00:08or ASA. Our mission is to increase workforce participation for young neurodivergent people
00:15and foster a generation of GATA professionals. We started because of the appalling unemployment
00:22rate of autistic people in Australia. 34% of young autistic people are unemployed and
00:29more than half of them have never had a paid job. But it shouldn't be that way, because
00:35the young neurodivergent mind often has fantastic strengths in this technologically advanced
00:41world. We also had an economic problem that we wanted to solve, and that was the fact
00:46that a lot of data processing from Australian organisations is offshored. The industries
00:52we serve offshore their data processing at a rate of more than a billion dollars a year.
00:59We bring that work onshore and train young neurodivergent people on the job as data analysts
01:06and contribute to the local Australian economy. We started in Brisbane with one employee.
01:13We've now employed more than 220 people at our social enterprise, 80% of which are young
01:19neurodivergent people, mainly autistic Australians. And as we grow, we show other organisations
01:26the potential of neurodivergent people and how they can integrate into any workplace
01:33if given the opportunity. Every individual that works with us has their own unique story.
01:39I remember when one of our young team came along with me to a cafe. He always walked
01:47behind me because he doesn't like to walk parallel when he has a conversation. We went
01:53up to the counter and he ordered a cappuccino. But when we got back, he came up to me and
01:58said, I've never had the confidence to order a coffee at a cafe before. You have no idea
02:05how much this means to me. I am motivated by all the young autistic people sitting at
02:12home wanting to work, but not quite sure how they will be accepted. There is so much
02:18untapped potential from our unemployed community. We found that young autistic people are unbelievable
02:25not only for productivity, but also for workplace culture. They're the best colleagues to have around.