Support our initiatives and students through philanthropy

The UTS Futures Academy is an exciting new initiative of the Business School’s, that will focus on helping reskill and upskill mid-career individuals in industries undergoing major change (e.g. financial sector and telecommunications) and who need to seek new career paths as they may be at risk of redundancy.

The courses provided will be flexible for the candidates and be offered as stackable micro-credentials so that their upskilling/reskilling will be tailored and customised to suit their needs and desired career pathway.

The AI threat to established managerial and professional jobs is of a different order of magnitude and equally pressing. Based on predictions that 15% of the workforce will lose their jobs due to AI in some form over the next 18 months, Katharine estimates that in the top 20 Australian companies alone over 135,000 people will lose their jobs. This is on top of those already out of work and seeking employment. The losses for the whole nation is estimated to be in the millions.

Adjustment to new skills and job requirements is painful. To make things worse, both individuals and their companies find the existing approach to consultancy based outplacement to be an unsatisfactory process, characterised as it is by a limited focus on placement rather than offering skills development that can prepare people for success in a different and new environment.

There is an emerging, yet unmet, need for people whose jobs are being made redundant to receive advice, counselling, and training so that they will be able to approach new opportunities with the frame of mind, skills and knowledge to win a embark on new careers and take up new jobs quickly and confidently. If people in this situation can better understand their existing capabilities, identify how these need to change, gain an appreciation of emerging new business environments, and acquire specific domain expertise where needed, they will be much better equipped to take on new appointments.

Informal discussions with Human Resource managers and consultants demonstrate that there is a pressing need. UTS is in a prime position to help address this need both in the immediate and longer term.

UTS Business School would like to offer scholarships for Masters and EMBA students – not offered by any other university – that offers short courses backed by strong technology and business expertise and works in conjunction with Jumbunna Research.

The Galuwa Business Program launched in late April/early May 2019, and will directly aim at enabling Indigenous secondary school students and corporate partners through meaningful and mutual exposure, to be informed on potential employees of choice and prospects for a career. We are targeting over 20 high schools that will engage more than 60 students, with student nominations for up to 30 participants towards the Galuwa Business School of 2019.

The program, which is designed to address major barriers, will encourage 30 Indigenous high school students in Years 9–12 to have an interest in attaining a degree in one of our undergraduate courses in STEM and/or in Business. Importantly, the program also provides industry partners with a unique opportunity to partner with UTS to build a pipeline of future employees.

Considerable work has been undertaken to support Indigenous entrepreneurs in the early stages of their businesses and start-up phases. However, like all businesses the first few years are critical, and UTS Business School would like to offer short courses to provide Indigenous SMEs with general and tailored knowledge on scaling up, managing finances during growth, governance changes required for growth, risk assessment and management, human resources in a growing business, change management, marketing for growth, increasing customer value and sustainable enterprise management.

To help the UTS Business School achieve its 2020 vision, advancing knowledge with impact, it will be seeking philanthropic funds to support endowed Chairs and/or professorships.

Creating a chair or professorship is one of the most significant investments a contributor can make at UTS Business School. These positions provide the resources our faculty need to do outstanding work in research and teaching. They also confer prestige to the holder and the institution. As a result, chairs and professorships provide the Business School with an important tool in recruiting and retaining fine faculty.

There are several different types of chairs and professorships, and they are associated with different levels of investment.

The UTS Business School would like to establish a Virtual Reality Financial and Manufacturing Trading Room – potentially in partnership with other UTS faculties such as the  Faculty of Engineering and IT and Faculty of Design, Architecture, and Building.

This would be a revolutionary and versatile platform using the power of virtual and augmented reality for education and training from the classroom, to the Board Room, to be adaptable, flexible and enable our students and industry partners to access education readily (overcoming the challenges for those who live remotely) and work around their day-to-day lives. This would encourage lifelong learning and attract international students to continue to connect with UTS in an exciting and engaging environment.