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Beyond the Horizon: Adapting for Digital Evolution Post-Pandemic with Mark Hind - Part 2

• Michael van Rooyen • Season 2 • Episode 7

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Unlock the future of aviation with Mark Hind, CTO of Air Service Australia, as he unveils the transformative power of cutting-edge technologies in our latest episode. Discover how digital twins are set to revolutionise air traffic management, allowing for pre-day operations simulations that promise unprecedented efficiency and safety. Get an insider's view on the challenges and breakthroughs in integrating drones into our airspace, and learn about the pivotal projects Air Service Australia is spearheading to overhaul their air traffic control systems.

Transitioning to a broader perspective, we explore the delicate balance between embracing new technologies and maintaining a human-centric organisational culture. Hear strategies on democratising technology projects to ensure they're business-led, not just tech-driven. We'll also delve into the potential of emerging technologies like AI, IoT, and blockchain, and debate their long-term impacts on the aviation industry. The conversation extends to the challenges of hyper-connectivity across Australia and the critical need for robust telecommunications infrastructure to support these advancements.

Finally, Mark shares his invaluable insights on fostering diversity within technology teams and the importance of mastering one's craft to drive broader service delivery goals. We'll discuss the vital role of mentorship and coaching in tech career development and reflect on the significant shifts brought about by the consumerisation of communications. Learn how mobile devices have evolved into essential tools for both connectivity and productivity, reshaping how we live and work. Join us for a compelling discussion that sheds light on the future of aviation technology and the innovative horizons ahead.

Michael van Rooyen:

Today I'm sharing part two of my interview with Mark Hind, the CTO of Air Service Australia. If you missed part one last week, I recommend giving it a listen. First, in the aviation sector there's been a lot of technology involvement. You talk about heritage systems that you need to water and feed and obviously lots of upgrades to bring new systems online. What sort of impact have these new technologies had in the operational efficiency and safety of your environment?

Mark Hind:

Yeah, again an interesting question. What we do today is we design for safety and also efficiency, and you know, obviously safety is our number one. We never compromise on that, and so we want to make sure that we're safe. And then the secondary part of that is efficiency. We design systems to make sure that they're reliable. Above all, it's the ecosystem that sits around those control or mission systems that are really important. We're from a groovy technology perspective.

Mark Hind:

We've been doing a lot of work with synthesizing our air traffic flow or digital twins. So we now have a digital twin that can replicate in a couple of seconds all traffic flow for the day and then we can adjust for weather and we can adjust for a number of different variables and then see what the delay looks like across that network in the major ports. And so if there's something going on in Sydney, we can see what delay that will have on Melbourne, because up and down the eastern seaboard they mostly go into Sydney and then into Melbourne and even across to Perth, and so it's the efficiencies that we can drive through then flow into the system. So that digital twin of our air traffic flow management helps us then inform our customers on what the day of ops is going to be Now. Are we there using ML or AI on day of ops? Absolutely not For this safety kind of connotation.

Mark Hind:

We need to make sure that the decisions that we're making are going to pay off on day of ops. What we can do pre-day of ops is run a number of what-if scenarios and still have a human interface over the top, making sure that it's practical, because you can put a whole heap of rules in place, but there is a practicality that comes with that. I think that certainly in the next two to three years, we'll see that ecosystem of support tools grow, not decision tools, and then, as we get comfortable with support tools, decision tools will come, and I think that's the evolution of it. We're not getting any less things in the sky, but we are getting less eyes on the glass, right or not less, although there won't be enough glass to put enough eyes for all the things in the sky.

Mark Hind:

I got it, and so I think, with drones and drone management kind of coming into play, that's going to be exponential. At the moment, we're talking about just standard aviation users. As drone delivery becomes a real reality, how do you make sure that they all separate? Delivery becomes a real reality, how do you make sure that they all separate? And so we're doing some work in that at the moment around trying to bring together a data ecosystem that can help us control those a little bit better. It's built in the kind of more fast-paced agile development mode while we try and work through how that might work, and then we can industrialize.

Michael van Rooyen:

Yes, because that world's coming right where packages are going to be delivered by drones. Uber's have been doing this for a while. This planning of these taxis in the air, all that sort of stuff, right. So very small point to point and that's what you're kind of future looking right. So, off the back of that, those are some of the most significant technology challenges that are facing the aviation industry. Or have you got some others that we haven't talked about so far that are challenging your industry, and particularly how Zerva Service is handling that?

Mark Hind:

So the problem is velocity. The speed in which the industry is changing is faster than it's ever changed before. The entrants into the market are more than ever before and drones kind of bring a really interesting mix into that. As I said, we're investing in some drone management work at the moment and we'll try and expand that over the next couple of years. We are currently in the middle of a once in a generation replacement of our air traffic control system, which will bring together both civil and military aircraft in a kind of single plane view so we can manage the airspace a little bit better. I mean, the organisation manages about 11% of the world's airspace now, but it does it through handoffs through that airspace, and so how do we get better at that and collapse it down and make it more efficient and effective for more coming on? And we're doing that work at the moment.

Mark Hind:

And that's a long project because we've got to build centres and migrate. We can't just do it while it's working. You can't build the plane in the air. The old EDS ad, which is fantastic I use that all the time because we've got to maintain the service that we have today while we're building for the service for tomorrow. I think we're stepping up to the plate, we're meeting the challenge head on. The question is can we speed up at the same point as the world is speeding up? And I'll go back to that immediacy kind of question how do you build when there's zero tolerance in the system?

Michael van Rooyen:

So off that, I know that you've obviously been a technology leader for a while and we'll talk a little bit before we wrap up around some of your leadership. The way you do leadership in the technologiancy but for particularly air services it's a really fairly traditional organization has been around a long time doing traditional services and then you've got this massive technology advancements coming along. So how do you foster a culture that embraces this technology and advancements, as well as innovation with a traditional organisation like Air Services? Yeah, again.

Mark Hind:

Great question, michael. I've maybe listened to you a lot and I'm just sort of reflecting.

Mark Hind:

We work in a bimodal approach, right, we have to be safe, solid, and our current technology stack needs to be supported no matter what, and if you take a service first kind of view, that's a given. So how do you then make sure that the people that are working on that can then somehow shift their mind to be thinking about kind of new bits? And I think what's important is you can't do both at the same time. So you've got to cycle in and out of innovation. You've got to be working on delivery excellence. You can't have your mind in kind of agile thinking at the same point.

Mark Hind:

We just don't switch that way, or at least I don't. Maybe I'm just too old, but it's being able to allow the space to be able to do both. We have our delivery guys, also work on projects and programs, and we try and embed them a little bit on the way through as well. So I don't think there's a straight answer to that. You've got to have the right people at the right time doing the right things and then give them the opportunity and space to think about other things.

Michael van Rooyen:

Yeah, fair enough, because I guess the natural inclination would be we've always done it this way. It's always worked. Sometimes people are scared about adopting technology, and I know that, again, you're very pro-technology for the benefits it gives, so it would have been probably a little bit hard to navigate that, but then people see the benefits right, while not disrupting safety, while making sure that you're walking chew gum, as they say, at the same time, right. One of the things off the back of that, though, is many leaders that I've seen in the technology technology industry kind of fallen into this trap of prioritizing technology over the people who use it. Right adopt technology for technology's sake, don't really think about the end users. What strategies have you used to keep this innovation and transformation the human as well at this at the same time?

Mark Hind:

I think it's pretty simple. You've got to democratize ownership. So what you've got to do is you make sure that your systems aren't serving for systems alone. It's actually got to be led by business change. And so we've got a really interesting framework where our system supervisors and system strategists sit in the business. They actually understand the problems of today and how they need to do that, and we take a very service provision kind of view. We'll drive into that outcome. We'll make sure that it's working and working well. But technology-led projects and programs get a technology outcome. We're not looking for technology outcomes, we're looking for business outcomes, and so they need to be business-led.

Mark Hind:

Democratise your products. Make sure that it's somewhere else. If you're replacing an ERP, your CFO is hand in glove with technology. It can't be delivered to them as a completed product, and so I think we take that approach out. The replacement of our air traffic control system that program is sitting with our operations team to lead, because it's actually a change in operations. Fair enough, the technology is one component of it, a very important component of it. But that's the approach right. I think it's rocket science. I think what technology areas get wrong quite often is they think they're serving the technology area. We sit in service of service delivery. It's a very simple kind of model. The more that you enable your people to have direct conversations with the customer, the service delivery area, the end customer, the better the outcome, because there's also a fear of letting down your customer and so you drive the right behaviours Off the back of that, it's a good answer.

Michael van Rooyen:

It's a tricky one when you sit and look at not just air service, but I know you read a lot about technology and keep abreast of all things happening when I see things emerging technologies. There's been a lot of discussion about AI for the last two years or 18 months. Blockchain is obviously fundamental to what's happened, to the way we can communicate or secure or validate. Then you've got the iot explosion. These are kind of the three or four large things on the broader technology landscape, but which of these or others that you want to talk about have the most significant impact long term, you think, to our industry?

Mark Hind:

ai is interesting. I mean generative ai is kind of interesting move where it's able to move forward. But ML has been around for years. Right, it's just a rebadging. It's like cloud, it's stuff you never understood in a place you can't touch. That's kind of the reality, right?

Mark Hind:

Iat or sensor-driven intelligent networks and when I say networks I don't mean telecommunications networks, I mean driven intelligent networks and when I say networks I don't mean telecommunications networks, I mean information coming from multiple sources to give you better outcomes is the one transformational piece that will make a difference. The more data you have, the more informed decisions you can make. Now you can throw an AI engine over the top of that to kind of take out the variability and run a number of what-if scenarios and kind of look for the answer, but it's not going to tell you what's right and wrong. It's going to tell you what it understands. I think that you can't have enough intelligence, you can't have enough data. And then what you do with that, how you weaponize that at some point, is important. So you know, start collecting.

Mark Hind:

We try and look for a new theme in technology every year. I think this year was the well, it has to be the year of AI, right. You know you can't turn an industry rag without understanding that it's going to come and take your jobs. That's right. It's not right. It's simply a different way of exposing data. That's right. But rapid acquisition of information has to drive that and you've got to get back at that foundation. Yes, so I think that kind of is there. How we connect that? How do we make that work across Australia? It's easy to do in the leafy greens of downtown Brisbane, but how do we do that across the country? How do we allow enough space in our telecommunications network to deliver the information that we need? That's a real challenge.

Michael van Rooyen:

But aren't we solving that with the likes of Lower Wood Satellite? I mean, hasn't that been really a large shift as well, really having the true comms, that we never had opportunity, I understand, I think we will.

Mark Hind:

I think we'll get there and we're certainly on a great path. I recently well, last year, not recently went on a great fishing trip and I was able to stay in connection range. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing actually.

Michael van Rooyen:

For those like us who want to always keep a finger on the pulse, it's it was important, yeah yeah, true, true, true.

Mark Hind:

But so I think connections, that hyper connection across the country, will get there, but it's not there yet, sure? I mean, I have a view on satellite right, which is it doesn't work when it's cloudy, windy, rainy. Monday, friday, saturday sunday inside a building on a sunny day for no particular reason. If you want reliability, yeah sure we're still in a country where you've got to dig trenches.

Michael van Rooyen:

Fibre's not going anywhere, right Even the satellite guys talk about fibre being the backhaul right Correct.

Mark Hind:

And it's not going away and we're not putting enough in it.

Michael van Rooyen:

That's true.

Mark Hind:

And reliable. So SD-WAN fantastic technology Be able to go across cheap technologies. It exists because we don't have a good backhaul. If you didn't have to choose which different backhaul you needed, you wouldn't have SD-WAN, that's true. Just buy fiber like the US.

Michael van Rooyen:

Right, they roll that fiber so bulk in the early days and that's really paid dividends now, rather than we're gonna roll a fiber everywhere geographic size the same, short population, different but they still did. They went the hard work and put it in the ground and NBN should have really done that. Right, it's really gone fiber everywhere. That was the original premise. That's a whole discussion. We won't go there. As we kind of near the end, I just wanted to ask a few more questions. Let's just talk about diversity in technology, right, we know you talked about skill shortage and diversity is a topic for everyone at the moment. Can you talk to me a bit about diversity in tech teams and does it lead to more innovational outcomes? What are your thoughts on building and managing kind of a diverse culture of technical teams?

Mark Hind:

What are your thoughts on building and managing kind of a diverse culture of technical teams. We need diversity in not just tech teams. We need diversity in the bottom, middle and top, through all parts of organizations. And I'm not talking about just male, female diversity, I'm talking diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of education, diversity of culture. All of those things drive a broader understanding for team dynamics. Good team dynamics build different performance. Different performance drives different outcomes.

Mark Hind:

We don't, for love nor money, have we got the right level of diversity in technology. As it sits today we are very male, pale and stale. Stale and we need to do better. It actually starts in grade three. Stem is the most important thing we should be investing in, and STEM for girls, STEM for boys it's actually just trying to get people that are engaged in engineering, maths, technology and fostering that all the way through. It remains a challenge and it should be a target. We actually have to over-index to come back to normal, so we actually have to hire more diverse teams to get to a nice place. That's pretty tough to do. We're not pumping out in the education kind of market the diversity at that end. We've got a demand problem and we've definitely got a supply problem and we need to invest more in supply. So I mean, I don't think we can do enough, but it does drive different outcomes. It drives performance, drives better behavior drives different thinking.

Michael van Rooyen:

I really like that. That's a really good spin on diversity, right, and most people just associate the gender diversity, but what you've really touched on is the multidimensional how we drive diversity across it, and I agree with it. It's what we need. We need different thinking, we need different approaches. What would be, then, some of the advice you'd give to aspiring technology leaders and what they need to do to prepare for the challenges and opportunities in our industry?

Mark Hind:

So technology leaders different to people leaders, I think know your craft. Know your craft so well that you don't have to rely on it, you don't have to question yourself about it. Then you can concentrate on how do you engage to get the right outcome. Because if you spend too much time doubting your craft, you spend all that time wallowing down in the how does it work, what does it mean, and not enough on how does it help. And so, I think, polish your craft as much as you can. Understand where the market's going. Spend the time understanding where the market's going.

Mark Hind:

It's shifting. It's shifted a hell of a long way in 30 years for me, although some of it hasn't. I think some of the technologies are probably the same. I like to think I could roll my sleeves up and jump back in, but you've got to be aware of what's happening, the trends, and don't believe the hype. But if you can do that, if your craft is good, you can apply that then to what we should be doing, which is sitting in service of service delivery. And that doesn't matter where we sit, whether you're in a managed service provider, whether you're in an IT team in the middle of nowhere, or you're in a SOC, you're actually servicing someone else, you're not servicing technology, and so how do you get better at that?

Michael van Rooyen:

Off the back of that, then, is how important is mentorship in the tech sector and how has mentorship played in your career and what qualities you look for in a mentee. If you were to give someone that advice, we do a couple of things really well.

Mark Hind:

We've committed to a program called the Future Through Collaboration TFTC, which actually takes young aspiring women leaders in technology and exposes them across the defence industries kind of space to lift not only their capabilities from a technology perspective but also from a leadership perspective, and it works really well. But from a standard mentor-mentee kind of view. If you want to grow, you need advice, you need someone to learn from, and so I'd be seeking out those leaders that you respect to ask them what they think about. It doesn't have to be formalised, asking them to help you with their career guidance. They're not there to tell you what to do.

Mark Hind:

Many people think that the mentoring kind of space is about setting pathways for you to your career. Well, you're the only one that can set your own pathway for your career. That's true, but you need to seek more advice because otherwise you're listening to a fan base of one. As you get into leadership roles, you want to learn from other leaders that do it well. Sometimes you learn from leaders that don't. The other side of mentoring is true coaching, and then if you're seeking about where to go mentoring, how to go coaching and you need a bit of both I still have to this day. I've got a professional coach that helps me with my many leadership gaps, because I'm certainly not perfect at it. And then I've got a number of mentors whether they recognize themselves as mentors or not that I go to for advice, and it's about testing that advice a couple of times just to make sure that the direction's right. I mean, it's never 90 degrees, star, but let's go this way. It's always, jeff five degrees, five degrees, five degrees, and you're never too old to learn, right?

Michael van Rooyen:

Yeah absolutely, that's great advice. And for my last question for our session and I ask this of all attendees for the podcast, and it's a very open question not specifically around air service or education or anything like that.

Mark Hind:

No, I don't need any more air services, thanks.

Michael van Rooyen:

Very good, very good, we haven't got any, so that's okay. Got me, so that's okay. A base of zero is a base of zero. Yeah, you can only go up from there, that's right. That's right. It's interesting to this, this question, and to the different answers I've received over the podcast. But tell me, what is the most significant technology change or shift you've been involved in during your career and how's that you know impacted you?

Mark Hind:

consumerization of communications. Okay, not that I've witnessed, right? I? I had a mobile phone in the 90s that allowed me to talk to someone from my car. That was pretty cool. But now I'm here today, I'm transacting on my mobile phone. It's everything that I have or need as a senior leader in an organization to do the work that I need to do.

Mark Hind:

The always on, always connected, the unbelievable ability to drive different outcomes from wherever you are, is absolutely down to that communication, not just device, but that communication change. And so that could go back to the fact that we've now built data networks. We, as an industry, have built data networks that connect the world right in the palm of your hand and you can do whatever you need to do. Sometimes it's a blessing, well, most of the times it's a blessing, sometimes it's a curse, but I think that is the greatest change that we've seen. It's not the advent of the supercomputer, it's not the advent of the cloud. All of those are interesting, but the ability to drive it to the customer and have them interact in a way that is now just natural is unbelievable. Right?

Mark Hind:

I love the quote that goes something along the lines of technology is everything invented after you were born, and so for the kids being born today, the device is not innovation, because that's what my parents used. It'll be whatever comes from that Right, right, and so for me that was it right. I've watched that go from when I started. There was no. Well, there was a little bit of internet, but it was bulletin board systems and dial-up modems. We're now in a hyper-connected, single model kind of product that sits in our hand, that does everything that we need.

Michael van Rooyen:

Yes, I completely agree. I mean, for me as well it's been kind of exactly the connectivity right, the fundamental way we're able to deliver communications. And I agree with you, the mobile phone one is really the major shift. That's changed everything. People just don't think about it anymore, right, which is normal for humans. New technology becomes, adopted, works reliably. People don't think about it anymore, but just the art of delivering communications anywhere every time is phenomenal.

Mark Hind:

Instagram goes down for 15 minutes, the world goes into a meltdown. Everyone's e-store is built on these platforms that were designed as communications tools and suddenly they're now core to business. And that core to business comes with an expectation of always on.

Michael van Rooyen:

Expectations have changed Zero tolerance, as you said earlier. Mark, really appreciate the time for coming in and having a chat. Fantastic discussion.

Mark Hind:

No thanks, nvr. Really appreciate being invited to Season 2. Thank you very much.

Michael van Rooyen:

See you in Season 3. Maybe.

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