In Session #2 of our recent Australian Technology Leaders webinar, the CEOs of Afterpay and WiseTech Global shared their stories of entrepreneurship, innovation and resilience, discussed the potential for Australian companies on the global stage, and provided a glimpse into the future of Australian technology.

Afterpay CEO and Co-Founder, Anthony Eisen, and WiseTech Global CEO and Founder, Richard White, predicted that the growth in technology will ‘compound’ from here, as traditional industries increase their technology spends by modernising their entire value chain.

These influential tech leaders reflected on entrepreneurship and innovation, and shared the very different paths they took to becoming an entrepreneur. Anthony urged budding entrepreneurs to find the courage to forge their own path, saying: “If you have the passion to do it, do it. The longer you wait, the more reasons you find not to do it.”

Technology stocks currently constitute 4.4% of the S&P/ASX 200 Index, while materials make up 19.3%, behind financials at 26.6% (as at 6 November 2020).

With Bloomberg recently ranking Australia 20^th in the world for innovation in technology, BetaShares CEO, Alex Vynokur, raised questions around the state of Australia’s entrepreneurial and innovation culture and the future potential for the technology space.

Source: www.visualcapitalist.com/world-most-innovative-economies/, Bloomberg Innovation Index.

According to Anthony, technology is unlocking new business models, while traditional business is employing technology in new ways: “Every business is a technology business in some way”.

Richard agreed that technology will permeate everything, saying: “Originally, we were living off the sheep’s back, and more recently it’s mining and service economies, but the technology industry in Australia and worldwide has done better practically than almost any other industry during and before COVID.”

For Richard, Australia has the opportunity to go from 20^th ranking to the top five by focusing on our education system and fostering a risk-taking attitude early, when Australians are coming out of school and university.

While Australia has the talent pool, Anthony added that it’s a small market in terms of its absolute size. So, for Australian technology companies to take flight, the global marketplace is a more relevant concept.

“Technology and platforms are borderless – so that’s a clear advantage. The more we can do culturally, socially and politically for Australian companies to go overseas and integrate, the more technology will become an export industry.”

Watch the full discussion now.

SPEAKERS

Anthony Eisen CEO and Co-founder, Afterpay	Richard White CEO and Founder, WiseTech Global	Daniel Petre AO Founder and Partner, AirTree Ventures

Paul Bassat Co-founder and Partner, Square Peg Capital	Manuri Gunawardena CEO and Founder, HealthMatch	Tim Fung CEO and Co-founder, Airtasker

Nathan Walsh CEO and Co-founder, Athena Home Loans	Daphne van der Oord Head of Australia and New Zealand, S&P Dow Jones Indices	Max Cunningham Executive General Manager, Issuer Services and Investment Products, ASX

Alex Vynokur CEO and Founder, BetaShares	Ilan Israelstam Co-founder, Head of Strategy and Marketing, BetaShares	Peter Harper Executive Director – Capital Markets and Institutional Business, BetaShares