2025 QLD Australian of the Year Geoffrey Smith

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.

Transcript

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.