The times they are regenerating

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An introduction to The Re Generation – a powerful new skills network set to transform the way Australia locates skilled and talented people.

Steve Chambers reports.

Early in 2005, a revolutionary business concept was conceived when two Australian information technology specialists applied a simple, yet powerful, search algorithm they were developing, to an employee database.

In combination with data base software they had created, they discovered they could efficiently audit a company's total skills base enabling management to search for required skills that would not be evident via standard employee occupational, vocational, or professional files.

In response to Australia's fast changing economy - which they considered was excluding large segments of the population - they conceived an internet system that could connect the current underutilised skill pool with government, industry, professional, and consumer needs.

By applying innovative search and data base technology, they believed any Australian could – via the network and with total privacy - monitor the relevance of their skills against market requirements.

This would enable young or prime-aged workers to reshape or refocus their skill-sets to plan their careers in synch with market trends.

People planning to re-enter the workforce could do so with more confidence, if they were able to retrain or re-educate their skills to fit current and emerging opportunities.

In addition, people requiring further income could negotiate and trade their skills over the network - with any other member or employer.

The founders – Noel Jones and Peter Landis - believed that the Australian economy was undergoing a radical shift and that unless workers were willing to refresh, redefine, or redirect their skills, millions could be excluded from participating in the new workplace.

They observed that:

The current practice of increasing shareholder value by simply cutting employees from their workforce, was short-sighted, and would inevitably - creatively and intellectually - disable the enterprise for the future. Internet technology, they contended, could enable employers to have the best of both worlds: access to experience and creative skills on an as-required- basis – without the significant cost of retaining an employee full-time.
To many older Australians, retirement was not an option; reinvention and retraining was the only alternative to a vastly reduced standard of living.
Some mature aged job seekers were failing to get work – not because they were old, but because their skills were.

"It's just not a physical economy anymore," said Jones, "acquiring capital to create value is as much about ideas , experience, and learning as it is about the share market or cost reduction."

Armed with these precepts and patent applications for search engine and database technology, they applied to the Federal Government's Industry Cooperative Innovation Program, and were awarded an Aus-Industry development grant in November.

Planned to be launched in mid 2006, the business is designed to leverage the huge Government investment in the rejuvenation of latent skill pools in the Australian population.

"We named the business, 'the Re Generation', because that's what it is: a network community who are intent on regenerating their knowledge and skills resources." said Jones.

In the first stage of the business – 2006-07 – the network will be orientated to audit, interact, and promote Australia's mature-age skill pool to public and private enterprise.

All segments of the mature age population will be invited to register on the network:- the employed, underemployed, unemployed, and those who have withdrawn from the work market through retirement, disillusionment, or disability.

"As long as people want to participate, and still retain the ability to adapt, and the desire to learn, they will always have value to an economy. These are the people of the Re Generation.", said Landis.

Due to the efficiency of the search, storage, and communication technology developed specifically for this network, the system can be operated on an extremely low cost structure.

Its' principal source of revenue will come from member's subscription fees forecast to be around $2 per month.

No transaction fees or charges will be levied on business for successfully identifying required skills on the network – nor will they be levied on members.

"It's about delivering a small return on a long overdue promise that technocrats have been sprouting for years – to help people work", says Jones.

He adds, "The vision for the business, is firstly as a trading or barter network for Australia's underutilised skill pool. It'll never be an employment service, it's an empowerment service - for workers. Secondly, it will become Australia's largest knowledge trading bank - promoting Australian skills to the world."