Andrew's blog

Australia 2020 Youth Summit

2008-04-14T04:04:54Z

[ NB: This is a long recount of what happened. If long recounts bore you, skip to the end where I summarise. This is also a WIP. ]

Awesome weekend.

Arrival was pretty good, except for a particular large airline who I shall not name losing my baggage at Sydney Airport. (It arrived on a flight a few hours later.) Got picked up by some DEEWR people, sent over to Parliament House, from there checked in at Rydges Lakeside.

Friday night was a good introductory activity. Hugh Evans and Kate Ellis gave speeches, we did some team building and introductions. I met with an engineering/IT student from ANU who approached me after hearing I was interested in ICT.

The main work was on Saturday, starting with the official opening, and Julia Gillard clarifying that the real reason for turning down the 'robot teachers' idea suggested by some Schools Summit participants was not 'maintenance costs' as some newspapers had reported. Hugh Mackay gave his somewhat scary but probably accurate predictions about Australian society over the next 12 years.

When we started the groupwork that morning that was where it seemed the program was thrown out the window, with some facilitators deciding to just cut to the chase and drop a few activities. It was a free-for-all with ideas being thrown in from all over. In my group, economy and infrastructure, we ended up with eight or nine whiteboards of writing. Improved transportation, social justice, equitable technology access, more freedom, less taxes and red tape, more environmental considerations, better education, more rural equality, increase in green-collar jobs, open trade - if it could be connected with the economy it was suggested.

The most exciting part was the open space melting pot. The ideas that came out of the Infrastructure sub-group included a transport revolution, improved data infrastructure, all future power needs to be met renewably, and the most interesting one, youth run infrastructure 'for tomorrow today'.

Youth run infrastructure, or YRI as I shall refer to it, was suggested by Simon Sheikh, who works as an advisor to Michael Costa in NSW Treasury. The idea is to have combined community and business centres for young people and entrepreneurs to get advice and access to facilities. Sure, not revolutionary, but it was definitely something I hadn't heard before. Transport, power, data are a bit more... traditional.

Action sessions were good, covering ideas in depth. I managed to get open source mentioned in connection with e-voting, which I disagreed with anyway.

Saturday night was interesting, with a networking session that ended up with me talking with a public service executive for an hour. Apparently his 'very small program' has a budget of $37m. He tells me a while back he was responsible for approving withdrawals from the Department's account with the RBA, which once meant he 'signed' a $1.2 billion cheque. Government is quite big. Slept at 12:45 Sunday morning.

[ NB: This is 'the end where I summarise'. ]

More action sessions Sunday morning. Three of them, rather than the two we had scheduled, since we were running behind. Voting on the best of the ideas, the highest priorities, was hard, because they were all brilliant. Integrated transport, drug patent reform, arts funding, improved education, promoting rural communities, a national sustainability challenge. Lower voting age to 16, enrol automatically, investigate e-voting. 100Mbit/s FTTP by 2012, 1Gbit/s by 2020. Feed-in tariffs in all states ASAP, promotion of microgeneration and other forms of renewable energy to meet future needs to 2020. Car-free CBDs, improved public transport, no city dweller to be any further than two kilometres from a bus station, train station or light rail. They were all great ideas.

We had photos. Lunch, where I just had hot chocolate instead. Discussion on the Australian Youth Forum. Lessons learnt. Last submissions for the communique. Then came the closing.

Then, it turned out the rumours were true, and Kevin Rudd was indeed there. Standing ovation and very loud applause. Many hands were quite sore by the time we'd gone through the winning ideas and the delegates voted to attend the main Australia 2020 Summit on our behalf.

The people I met were amazing. Just walking around, encountering a member of the NSW Board of Studies, an advisor to the State Treasurer, an UNYA coordinator, a YMCA Youth Parliament organiser. Many varieties of uni students, rurals, some high schoolers. It was great.

Back to the hotel, picked up our baggage. On the bus, back to the airport. Checked in, through security. Up to the departure lounge.

TV was on. News was on. Ten or fifteen of us delegates up there at the time. Then Kate Ellis walks in. 'Hi everyone!' 'Hi Kate! Ooh, look, WE'RE ON!' The faces on some of the other passengers were a bit WTH-ish. It was quite funny.

Flight back was turbulent. Canberra to Sydney was a few minutes late. Sydney was closed by Airservices due to lightning alert for a while. My connecting flight ended up two hours late, and before landing we were circling around for 15 minutes waiting for the storms to clear. I was rushing around Sydney Airport trying to find the right bag drop desks and the correct gates, only to find out I wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. Oh well, I got home in the end.

It was good. Now, for results. Communique should be released any time now. If the government doesn't take it up, we will.

Best quotes:

"You're not just a generation of Coreys" - The Hon. Kate Ellis MP
"I've been back in the country for four hours, and I've already got some homework." - The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP

Yay! A letter!

2008-03-25T05:48:30Z

Got a letter from Kate Ellis today. She ought to employ some staff who can a) spell Port Macquarie properly and b) seal envelopes properly. Oh well, it's still a letter from Kate Ellis.

Yayness

2008-03-20T05:35:53Z

I got into the Australia 2020 Youth Summit :D Free plane tickets to Canberra :D :D Meeting government people :D :D

I also got my Howard Government WorkChoices propaganda today, courtesy of Ms Gillard's office. Ah, the good old Dark Ages of industrial relations... FORWARD WITH FAIRNESS!

R. I. P. someone

2008-02-13T06:32:40Z

R. I. P. Someone Who The Regular Readers of my Blog Would Know (1950? 1960?-13/02/2008)

I won't say the name right now, as the family is still in a bit of shock, obviously, but if authress and kyran don't know in 48 hours I'd be very surprised.

Year 11 so far

2008-02-02T04:44:12Z

So far the 2008 school year has gone pretty well for me. Tuesday I started at St Columba with an assembly, getting timetables and so on all sorted out. Total of three classes that day.

Wednesday, off to Coffs Harbour for the Year 11 study preparation camp. We started at Extreme Team at Karangi, doing six hours of boot-camp/scout-ish stuff, before going back to Southern Cross University. Thursday and Friday we had more activities, a uni tour, some presentations, including one by Edwina McCoy, North Coast BOSLO, about the HSC, where I picked up at least one factual error :P

Monday coming up, I have to figure out where my roll call actually is, where my house meetings are, what's up with sport, and what I ought to do in free periods, of which I have more than anyone else in class :D

authress, kyran, how's 2008 treating you so far?

Goodbye Heritage

2008-01-21T08:24:32Z

Today the enrolment forms were handed into St Columba. Eight days until Year 11 orientation, then Year 11 camp.

I'll remember you both, kyran and authress. Have fun in 2008 at Heritage.

2008 so far

2008-01-12T03:34:36Z

KDE 4.0.0. Awesome.

Getting Steal This Film, Parts 1 and 2, downloaded. Also awesome.

Preparing to make a documentary called "Language Patterns of Chinese Migrants" or similar. The past week has given me more Chinglish than I've had in years.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-27T00:14:02Z

Merry Christmas everyone... what was it like?

DCOP

2007-12-27T00:13:29Z

DCOP - quite fun to play with.

Results are out

2007-12-18T23:27:41Z

Units	Course	Exam Mark	Assessment Mark	HSC Mark	Band
2	Chemistry	79	79	79	4
2	Software Design and Development	89	85	87	5

Better than I expected really. Kyran?

Awards night

2007-12-12T21:31:48Z

So I got Year 10 Dux, awards for four subjects, but most importantly I got my School Certificate.

Sitting about five metres from the speakers was terribly annoying. Whoever was doing the audio... It was also a slow night and some parts were very, very cringeworthy. At least they didn't get Leah to sing again.

Anyway, I like my shiny certificate. It's shiny, which is the most important part. It's also very official-looking, which is the other important part. Go SC!

The formal

2007-12-06T22:06:06Z

Last night was the Year 10 Formal. It was OK. Pretty much all of us except Ben were wearing a suit of some sort.

The ceremony was alright, but I think it should have started earlier as we were waiting outside taking photos for too long and eating what was supposedly $12 worth of hors d'oeuvre, but was hardly anything. (I ended up going to KFC afterwards.)

I wasn't going to go on the cruise afterwards at first but I changed my mind after hearing Ben was going too. It ended up being pretty good although I'm pretty tired this morning.

Yay

2007-11-22T05:30:44Z

Confirmed - physics is on offer next year! Yay!

One-quarter of the way to full freedom

2007-11-12T01:20:38Z

English-literacy - over.

Easy exam, I really wish I could get a copy of my answers because in my not-so-honest-impartial opinion some of them were really quite good.

Three-quarters of the way to freedom

2007-11-06T08:01:37Z

I did four exams today. Plus the two I had yesterday. And I'll have two tomorrow.

Seriously, 10CompSkills is so easy. I took 15 minutes to answer all 100 questions, which makes it 9 seconds per question. Of course I *have* done two HSC computing subjects and Sylvester tells me there were people who got quite a few wrong.

Quite strange - we're in the most technological generation yet, and yet there aren't too many who are really computer-literate. Suppose that's one of the good things about being in uni - not being exposed to those with no clue of what they're doing.

YAY!

2007-11-01T06:21:35Z

SDD - OVER!

I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THE WORDS ALGORITHM, PSEUDOCODE OR FLOWCHART FOR A LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG LOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG TIME....

Actually it wasn't bad, I think I might get 80 raw.

Yay!

2007-10-24T05:28:57Z

Goodbye Chemistry!

Was alright, not terrible. Took 2.5 of the three hours I had. Not too hard, not too easy.

Retro!

2007-10-19T12:06:20Z

I got an Amstrad CPC-464 today! Retro!

Yay!

2007-09-05T06:44:29Z

Just submitted an order for 1 gig of PC3200 :) Only $60 + $8 shipping! Very cheap relatively speaking.

And if you're looking for computer hardware bargains in Oz, I can only say that StaticIce is wonderful. Annoying when they mis-index some sites and put the wrong prices on though.

/me still wonders whether I can trust the business I ordered from... they do speak broken English. Although Whirlpool seems to say it's OK, and it does actually exist.

Sci and Eng Challenge!

2007-08-23T06:48:35Z

Yesterday was the Science and Engineering Super Challenge Newcastle Zone.

GUESS WHO WON?!?!

... not us. We came fourth out of nine schools. Anyway.

Our school won the bridge (again), not sure about the other activities but I know my group came around second or third in both of ours. Still, it was fun.

I'll just need to bribe our science teachers to let us go next year ;)

Anyway, I have SDD trials tomorrow. As well as an assessment task, which, along with having not yet started, I can't find the sheet for. Oh well.

Sci Challenge!

2007-08-21T08:35:21Z

I'll be up early (early = 5:30am) tomorrow to the Science and Engineering Super Challenge.

I'm doing ElectraCITY and Confounding Communications. Fun! Mathsy/computersy/sciencey stuff.

Posted using LJ Talk...

2007-08-21T08:33:23Z

I just saw my clock ticking backwards. I'm scared.

Newcastle, here we come

2007-07-27T08:36:48Z

Turns out there was a spare space in the Science and Engineering Super Challenge in Newcastle, and as we did so well earlier this year we get to go. Yay!

Only problem will be getting to school at 6:30, but Dad'll cope.

My views on the world

2007-06-29T09:37:11Z

I:
* am quite interested in computers and technology
* am interested in politics
* think that neither Liberal nor Labor are that great, but at the moment Labor's better
* am interested in Christian studies in many areas (theology, ethics, history, etc.)
* am not pre-millenialist
* believe Free Software is morally right (and Biblical in a way as well)
* prefer Free Software to Open Source
* am an environmentalist
* like to sign (online) petitions
* support freedom of speech (in the sense of freedom of political expression)
* am interested in law and government
* am interested in the history of law and government
* am planning to volunteer for an emergency service of some sort when I reach the age requirements
* believe rail is better than road
* unlike most Year 10 students/Americans/people I know am aware of the world around me
* am neutral on the Middle East crisis
* believe that the creation of the State of Israel was a mistake
* don't believe that the references to Israel in the New Testament are always literal
* believe that censorship should be restricted to genuinely obscene material and not be applied to political material
* stay up late to watch election broadcasts
* don't support gay marriage
* am an evangelical Christian as you can probably tell
* like editing Wikipedia
* believe you can use Wikipedia as a source for schoolwork subject to certain conditions
* hope Mr Mantle doesn't see the point above
* like school sometimes
* don't like school sometimes
* would highly recommend you DON'T do Distance Ed if you have the chance
* am planning to go to uni
* know both verses of the national anthem
* know the powers of two up until 2^20
* unlike authress don't screen my comments
* want to be associated to my real life identity
* try to use proper, grammatically correct English where possible
* can make websites
* like making random lists about random stuff, like this list

Any questions, ask away.

BBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..............

2007-06-13T01:05:04Z

IT'S FREEZING.... and for me to feel cold it has to be pretty cold. No precise measurements, but...

Even the supposedly cold rooms at school aren't as cold as my room.