By Ron Gauci, CEO AIIA
During COVID-impacted 2020, Dr Stefan Hajkowicz, principal scientist in Strategy & Foresight at CSIRO, presented to AIIA members about how history should be potentially repeating itself 100 years on.
He spoke about how 100 years ago Australia, coming out of the devastating impact of World War I, was hit by the Spanish flu, resulting in 50 million deaths worldwide. In Australia about 40 per cent of the population fell ill, with more than 15,000 deaths. He went on to talk about how, leading up to the 1920s, Australia had also built a burgeoning electricity capacity and capability nationally, resulting in a boom in the development of machinery and white goods, which in turn resulted in what we now know as the “Roaring 20s” – a period of economic prosperity for Australia.