How a University Is Training the Next Generation of Digital Engineers with Julie Jupp

Andrea Ciaffi

Hi, Julie. Welcome to the Digital Construction Podcast. Today we are joined by Professor Julie Josh, Deputy Director of Teaching and Learning Engagement at UTS. Julie is one of Australian leading boys in digital engineering, education and research. We explore her career, her work across Building Smart Australia, the University of Technology of Sydney and Women in BIM.

Andrea Ciaffi

So you can see Julie is a very busy person. But before we start, Julie,

Julie Jupp

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

I have an icebreaker for you. What's the best piece of advice you have ever received in your career?

Julie Jupp

Thanks very much for the introduction. Thanks for having me on your podcast. I think the best piece of advice early on, I was probably doing a lot. Many would argue I'm still doing a lot. You know, research, writing papers, committees, various projects. And really a mentor pulled me up and said, you know, that's all great, but what are you actually doing?

Julie Jupp

What are you actually changing? And because being applied and doing applied and practical research has always been a kind of key driver for me.

Julie Jupp

That really, that advice really pushed me towards work that really creates usable outcomes, you know, curriculum that shifts capability, research that changes how organisations are able to govern data and standards that that really improve interoperability, although may not be perfect, but they have taken tangible steps to improve interoperability rather than just talking about it.

Julie Jupp

And I guess if I'm being honest, you know, in sort of my field, my broader field of research in computational design and and construction research like BIM and digital engineering. You know, it's easy to get distracted by the role of technologies and tooling.

Julie Jupp

And certainly that was ever present in my early research career. So my mentor's sort of early advice always reminds me to sort of keep asking, you know, what's the decision that this enables, whether that's research or standards and, you know, what risk does it reduce and what life cycle outcomes?

Julie Jupp

Does it improve?

Andrea Ciaffi

That's very interesting. And speaking about your career, can you walk us through your journey from your PhD in architecture to all the roles that you have today and what drew you towards research and academic career?

Julie Jupp

Well, my PhD is in architecture. It's in an area called Design Computing with the Key Centre of Design Computing at Sydney University. And really initially I was quite fascinated with how design decisions really become information and how that information is represented in 2D, in 3D, in spreadsheets, in databases, and how that's interpreted, shared, understood or misunderstood by individuals working in project teams.

Julie Jupp

And then sort of later during my postdoc, I became quite interested in how that data and information really survives or doesn't as projects move from concept into delivery and then into operations. So my PhD really gave me quite a strong grounding in computational in systems lenses.

Julie Jupp

And I quickly realised during my postdoc at Cambridge University, which I was very fortunate, I picked up a postdoc sort of in the early 2000s. which was focused on knowledge and information management through life. And that really introduced me to the sort of hard problem where it wasn't based on modelling data and information.

Julie Jupp

It was really governance and coordination and the handover of that information. So over time, my work kind of shifted from digital representation to the digital delivery ecosystem and how data moves really across an organization, whether that be a project organisation or an individual organization.

Julie Jupp

How you know contracts and platforms and different lifecycle stages? are impediments to the flow of information. And that really naturally led in, of course, to BIM. BIM, you know, was a 2010 here in Australia. BIM was a, it was a really big year for BIM.

Julie Jupp

We had a number of projects that were coming to fruition, having been delivered through BIM. And on my return to Cambridge, which was in 2010, that really sort of solidified that work. And then moving into the area of digital engineering was really quite an easy transition for me.

Julie Jupp

And that was in large part because of the work that we were doing, doing comparative studies with between complex discrete manufacturing and the construction sector. And the sort of term of that time was product life cycle management and that as a discipline and an area of capability is still very relevant and well established in complex discrete manufacturing.

Julie Jupp

But it's really what digital engineering has been born out of and model-based systems engineering. So it was very solid grounding for, I guess, my sort of early research training. But it really led to that bigger question, how do we institutionalise good practice.

Julie Jupp

How do we do that through education standards and profession, sort of professional recognition of that, which is really what is holding back the construction sector as we sort of apply these concepts and methodologies into a sector that doesn't have the same. structure and supply chain integration that sectors like aerospace and automotive sectors have.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, I really find it interesting to understand where different people come from and end up in this space. And one of the things that you're also doing is you are in the board of directors of Women in Being, very important organization. I'm a strong supporter of this organization.

Andrea Ciaffi

I really hope that one day we'll have more women in this space. But can you tell us more about this organisation and the work that you and the team does to support women in this industry?

Julie Jupp

Yeah, absolutely. Look, Women in BIM is an organisation, a not-for-profit that really matters because digital transformation without inclusion is really only a half-finished job. And this is for several reasons, you know, but if we're really serious about changing how the industry works, how decisions are made, how data is governed, how collaboration happens, how we shift the needle on productivity, then we really need diversity.

Julie Jupp

And it's through diversity that's going to help shape those new digital practices. not just sort of us consuming them as an industry. So my role as director really focuses on strategic alignment and capability uplift.

Julie Jupp

And so I support pathways for women to be able to move from participation into influence, which I think We're going to see a growing importance and value of women in technical leadership roles, in standards development and governance roles, in sort of executive decision making in particular.

Julie Jupp

because it's, I think, not within our interest to have women who have come from outside of digital roles really into senior leadership positions without a good level of understanding of the complexity of digital delivery environments.

Julie Jupp

And so really what we want to see is we want to see women working in digital roles, really be able to upskill, cross-skill, reskill and take on more executive leadership roles so as to be able to bring that influence and knowledge of digital engineering into practise or into the senior executive positions.

Julie Jupp

And that is both sort of from a government and industry delivery partner perspective. So...

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that is, yes, sorry, go ahead.

Julie Jupp

No, you go ahead.

Andrea Ciaffi

No, I was just going to say there is a there is a lot of work for women being, but I think it's a good opportunity for everybody if we can have more women in this industry. Yeah, adding value and and one of the one of the aspects like when I was working for Arab.

Andrea Ciaffi

a few years ago. Dave CEO were two women that have created this role as two co-CEOs. And one of the things that they said is that the only way for a woman who are younger to aspire to become, to be part of this industry is to be able to see these role models.

Andrea Ciaffi

So it's important that people like you are like a role model for these people and they can see that there is a representation for them as well. So thank you for that.

Julie Jupp

Yeah, look, I think it's just... Great that you've got that experience and that insight working in ARUC, because I think what Women in BIM does particularly well is to create that credible professional space and pathway, like where, you know, not just technical depth and delivery experience, but real leadership development are treated as...

Julie Jupp

inseparable. I think that's what's holding the discipline of digital engineering back, that we sort of aren't necessarily have a lot of role models and leaders. They are out there, but that leadership. experience that's really underpinned by that delivery, digital delivery is so important as we move into the next sort of five to 10 years.

Julie Jupp

It's really, you know, critical, I think, in digital engineering, which you know, sits at the intersection of engineering, technology and organisational change.

Andrea Ciaffi

And I mentioned that you're a very busy person and we are talking about Building Smart Australia as well. It's another, you're also a director in this organization. But before we talk about what you do, can you share for the people who are less familiar with what Building Smart does, can you describe its mission and what is it about?

Julie Jupp

Yeah, sure. So Building Smart really exists to make built environment data work across the life cycle. And I've been working with Building Smart really from the very early stages of my PhD when it was called the International Alliance of Interoperability. And it's an organisation and a set of standards, technologies that have really never been outside of my work, my research involvement.

Julie Jupp

It's really played a very central role. And this is because not only from an academic perspective, but especially from an industry perspective, interoperability across tools, across the supply chain, across asset owners through open standards is particularly important if we're to be able to leverage data in an efficient and effective way.

Julie Jupp

So the mission of Building Smart is basically, you know, make interoperability normal so that information isn't trapped in proprietary silos and projects. So, you know, that you're not within a project spending. years reinventing basic information or coordination. So, you know, its practical value is huge and undeniable.

Julie Jupp

It's an international standard. We have, as a result, you know, fewer translation errors. We have sort of cleaner handovers we have is, you know, a much better, I suppose, foundation for digital twins, for analytics, and particularly for AI.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, definitely. And can you share with us what's your role? Because now you're a director within the organisation and how does this connect to your research?

Julie Jupp

Yeah, sure. This is my 4th year on the board that I've been privileged to sit in that role. And as a director, I'm really focused, I suppose, on trying to bridge 3 worlds that really don't always align. And they are sort of industry delivery and the realities of industry delivery.

Julie Jupp

Of course, the standards and the methods in which we implement those standards. And then the education and the capability uplift that obviously needs to underpin that. So my research and my teaching really sits at the seam of those three worlds. how we achieve life cycle information management and how we create good governance that makes interoperability sort of operational rather than aspirational.

Julie Jupp

I think that there's a lot of a lack of understanding and awareness. in planning and establishing how interoperability will work on a project. And unless that is done, unless that is good governance mechanisms are put in place early. And so that's what we're really focused on.

Julie Jupp

in much of our micro-credential teaching, but also at the undergraduate level.

Andrea Ciaffi

Interesting, when you mentioned your micro-credential teaching, like, do you think that university can contribute to strengthening the adoption of this type of standards in a way?

Julie Jupp

The you ha.

Andrea Ciaffi

The build is smart. Yeah. You know, like the build is smart.

Julie Jupp

All the.

Andrea Ciaffi

Do you think do you think that the university can contribute to strengthening the adoption? Because one of the things that I always find challenging is that we create these standards and there is so much work done from organisations like Building Smart. But then there are also gaps in adoption of open standards across Australia, but also other countries.

Andrea Ciaffi

So I guess my two questions are, do you see any gaps or that are related maybe to the processes and if there is

Julie Jupp

Mm.

Andrea Ciaffi

anything the university can do to contribute to improve this adoption? Of standards.

Julie Jupp

Yeah, look, in terms of, you know, the progress, there's, you know, far more awareness now, I think, that open standards are really a strategic risk that needs to be controlled on projects. It's not sort of a preference or a philosophy or an ideology.

Julie Jupp

open standards. You've got major government clients and agencies, and they have for a very long time, particularly, you know, in the US and Europe, Australia has been late to the adoption of, you know, relatively speaking of open standards with IFC. But you've got major government clients and agencies that really now understand that vendor lock-in and fragmented data are real liabilities for their digitalization and data strategies.

Julie Jupp

So in terms of gaps, you know, the adoption is still quite uneven because we often really, I think, treat standards is really a technical team problem. And the missing piece here is usually, you know, in procurement and assurance within project delivery. So, you know, contracts that mandate outcomes and verify, you know, processes and data that test the conformance.

Julie Jupp

in a really meaningful way. You have a real issue in that, you know, the busyness of projects day-to-day often outpace the ability to verify and validate. And so if nobody cheques it won't stick.

Julie Jupp

And that's why limiting it to the technical team, to the digital engineering team, in terms of its purpose, its function, its value, is why I think we have other more really simpler gaps to solve. I mean, they really come down to really more technical gaps.

Julie Jupp

And, you know, there being sort of missing property sets, for example, that are specific to a project. And they're much more, you know, obvious sort of gaps that I think industry like. to complain about, but really, it's the governance of an open standard that needs to be established and acknowledged much more widely within a project.

Julie Jupp

So your next question was really around how universities can contribute to strengthening standards adoption. And I think we do three things. rather well in a kind of learning and research environment kind of capacity, in that universities teach the principles behind the standards, the information modelling, the schema exchange logic, the lifecycle requirements.

Julie Jupp

And so graduates aren't sort of tool dependent.

Julie Jupp

And I think, you know, certainly in my time, we sort of came out knowing one particular, you know, software solution, whether that be sort of Revit or ArchiCAD, and we were sort of locked into a world without sort of knowing that really at the back end, those worlds are very, very similar and transitioning between software is something that we weren't necessarily convinced about.

Julie Jupp

But I think once you understand and teach those principles of the data, it becomes Yeah, you become much more aware of data management and metadata, particularly metadata governance practices, good practices. The second thing is we really provide, I think, much more of a neutral playing ground or field for cross-industry collaboration and testing.

Julie Jupp

And that's really, I suppose, a comment that's really about what we do well in terms of our research and our ability to provide that kind of environment for testing. And then we translate standards really into good practice. So this has been a particular strength of the micro-credentials where we don't teach the software per se, we teach workflow, we teach digital workflow.

Julie Jupp

And so through those, the applied research that we do, through the knowledge capture that we, programmes that we have with our industry fellows, were able to then take that new knowledge and case studies and develop training artefacts that organisations can actually use.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's interesting. And you touched on the work that UTS University of Technology Sydney does in this space, but do you think you want to expand a little bit on what digital engineering education looks like at UTS today? Like in practice, I'm thinking about somebody who is young and want to start the journey.

Andrea Ciaffi

a career journey in this space, what can they expect to learn in a UTS?

Julie Jupp

Yeah, look, it's a really interesting time. I think that there are a lot of things in flux at the moment. I think at UTS we really treat digital engineering as a discipline of delivery and we're very clear about what that discipline in terms of roles, responsibilities and accountabilities.

Julie Jupp

really accounts for. I think this is an area where really pedagogy and teaching content hasn't necessarily caught up. So I mean, I think we still have industry sort of grappling with getting those aspects of it right. And so what we see at most universities is that it's sort of, sure, there's some information management practises that are being taught, but it's really treated as a software module.

Julie Jupp

I think students come to our classes and really expect a course in Revit so that they can be productive on day one, which is certainly important. that they are.

Julie Jupp

But, you know, UTS students really learn how information is specified, how it's governed, how it's exchanged, how it's assured, essentially so that it can be used across a life cycle, whether that be you talking about the project life cycle or an asset life cycle.

Julie Jupp

And that really includes sort of the BIM fundamentals or information management according to ISO 19650, which is an important international standard that underpins digital engineering. But also I think what UTS is really focused on is the inclusion of systems thinking. To some extent, systems engineering, but we need to draw the line somewhere because it's a very dense and complex area, systems engineering.

Julie Jupp

Data literacy is really important, particularly in introducing that to engineering cohorts. And linked to sort of that systems thinking and data literacy is really focused on requirements and configuration management thinking. And so that sort of in an everyday form sort of manifests, of course, We often think about it in terms of design coordination.

Julie Jupp

We can zoom out in terms of project coordination, but really it's sort of trying to link the collaborative delivery behaviours with really robust and disciplined methods that are grounded. In in systems thinking.

Andrea Ciaffi

And can you expand a little bit on what micro-credentials programmes are?

Julie Jupp

So micro-credentials are a relatively recent qualification that has really been born out of digital transformation and the need for upskilling, cross-skilling, reskilling in industry. So it's a way that industry can return to a university and take a course that doesn't necessarily just, or a subject that doesn't necessarily just.

Julie Jupp

end with that subject. So a micro-credential within a university sort of is stackable. So you can collect them as you continue your journey with the university. I think the original intent of micro-credentials when they were first conceived and really pushed forward by government.

Julie Jupp

We've seen a large government initiative, federal government initiative that was implemented by the Education Department with a series of large block grants. It's called the Higher Education Micro-Credential Pilot Program.

Julie Jupp

They really initially conceived that universities would actually share micro-credentials and you'd be able to sort of take, you know, a foundations and digital engineering course with UTS and you'd be able to go across to UNSW and take a a course that was focused on digital construction, for example.

Julie Jupp

And it hasn't really evolved the market. And because of university structures and policies and politics, essentially, it hasn't really delivered on its promise.

Julie Jupp

And so micro-credentials still have value in terms of signing up for a series of micro credentials within a university, stacking them, and then using that as recognised prior learning, credit recognition, essentially, to then enrol into a master's programme or a graduate certificate so that you can sort of incrementally gather certificates and then upskill to a with a much more confidence that you're in in terms of your investment that you'll actually complete because it's a big commitment for you know a busy industry practitioner to go and enrol in in a Sort of masters level course.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and one aspect that is probably not just specific for the digital construction industry, but maybe in general for all of the other industry is the gap are the gaps between what students learn at uni and what they need to do when they enter the workforce.

Andrea Ciaffi

So what do you think about that? What's the stage at the moment for this specific space in digital construction? And maybe what type of feedback do you hear from graduates that transition from the university into the industry?

Andrea Ciaffi

You mentioned before that they expect, that they think, that they will learn how to use Revit, but then they have to learn more conditional concepts before, which is very important, of course. But what type of gaps do you see at the moment?

Julie Jupp

Yeah, look, I think, you know, universities can really underplay the messiness of industry practice. I think real projects have, you know, legacy systems and contractual ambiguity. There's sort of, particularly with regards to digital transformation, there's really partial adoption of many different frameworks and standards on projects, even when they're mandated or contractually specified.

Julie Jupp

You know, there's all kinds of, you know, political constraints. There's lots of uneven capability across the supply chain. And so really graduates are often surprised that you know, best practise is optional, unless someone really owns that assurance and governance space on your project and is managing that well.

Julie Jupp

And so to address that gap, we build learning experiences that are specifically addressed to include that friction. We, we, and we started doing this very early on, you know, I've been teaching BIM from, you know. mid 2000 and to as an organisational practise since 2010.

Julie Jupp

And, you know, we of course have imperfect models within industry and likewise in a learning and teaching environment. And of course, they have to be imperfect in a realistic way.

Julie Jupp

It's all about that imperfect data, and it's really challenging for educators to know where the imperfections are in large data sets and to know that data set that you're handling out, handing out in a Problem-based sort of learning environment, so that you can guide students through how you manage imperfect data.

Julie Jupp

So, you know, when it comes to open standards and interoperability, you know how to deal with versioning problems, how to... deal with change events and not just change events within the requirements, the functional requirements or information requirements of a project, but really the change management events that you're dealing with with stakeholders, with project team members who are very much entrenched.

Julie Jupp

in their traditional practices. And it's quite challenging for, I think, particularly young people to be able to manage those conversations effectively. There's continuous pushback, I have to say. I have a lot of students who are really, you know, coming to class and telling me that, you know, but their supervisor says that this will never work and not in their lifetime and never on their project.

Julie Jupp

And yeah, they have some pretty heavy-handed, you know, line managers that then really put an end to their enthusiasm in digital. But for every sort of negative story, you get a positive story. back as well. You know, I remember 1 mature age undergraduate student who came to me very early on in a class and said to me, look, I'm really not digital at all.

Julie Jupp

I'm not even really experienced with Word. I'm not comfortable on a computer. I'm very much you know, a site manager. And he was back to really get a degree because he'd been working on site and really wanted to be a construction project manager with credentials.

Julie Jupp

So we took him from zero to 100 and I'll never forget this day that he came in at the end of the course after a lot of blood, sweat and tears and said, I just had a design coordination meeting and I was you know, navigating the model and I was the one telling the architect, you know, and identifying where all the flaws were, where all the coordination issues were in their model.

Julie Jupp

And because I had control of the model, because I could direct the communication, because I could interrogate and query that data, He said, I had an authority in that room that I've never had before.

Julie Jupp

And so it's those kinds of anecdotes that you get back where you then are able to recharge and reset and up the sort of the ante, as it were, what your objectives and what outcomes you're hoping that you'll get from your teaching.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, there is always somebody that says that tries to stop the innovation, and then they learn it the other way.

Julie Jupp

Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of dinosaurs out there. There are a lot of non-believers. And so it's really empowering students to be able to manage difficult conversations with the sort of traditional cohort of engineers and construction managers. And, you know, to be able to to really become the teacher within their own organisations.

Julie Jupp

You know, we have a few stories where students have actually established BIM programs, BIM teams and BIM pilots within their home organisation as a result of the courses, which is always Yeah, there are always great case studies and anecdotes that you want to collect.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and speaking about innovation, it's very hard to predict the future, of course, but you are in a position where you probably observe all the new technologies. And I'm just keen to know what innovation do you believe will reshape the construction industry over the next decade?

Julie Jupp

Yeah, that's a really good question. Look, I think... Um, you know, everybody has their own, um, uh, sort of... utopic outlook when they answer this question. I think the biggest shift needs to be qualified, I think, with regards to our ability as an industry to support capability uplift at a much broader scale than we're currently doing.

Julie Jupp

So I'll just caveat that. my response with that. But I think that the biggest shift that if we can sort of maintain our trajectory will be sort of connected and governable data environments. So not just sort of more digital, but I think what we'll see is a shift in common data environments.

Julie Jupp

that are systematic, truly interoperable, and are able to achieve this in a more automated way with traceability and automated checking and lifecycle continuity. I think AI is going to matter, of course, it already does. It's already doing a lot of grunt work for us, but really only where the data is structured and where it's trustworthy.

Julie Jupp

And without that, it just accelerates the confusion. So we need to head that off, we need to circumvent that. And that's where I think the role and the transformation of common data environments will start to will start to grow.

Julie Jupp

And I think we've got we've still got a lot of technology and process that we can we can adopt and we can borrow from things like PLM platforms that we haven't yet because we haven't reached that level of maturity within our sector to be able to take those systems and that level of integration into our supply chain.

Julie Jupp

But I think that that is coming. I think I'm also sort of watching the rise of automated assurance of rule-based and model-based checking and configuration control across federated platforms. I think that that's going to really, and it has to be able to reduce many of the challenges that we currently see with the implementation of digital engineering.

Julie Jupp

on projects where even where you have sort of very effective standards and where it's written into contracts, where you have very clever people implementing your work, you still have a mountain of that work to do. And so we have to be able to automate that.

Julie Jupp

And, you know, we need better ways to detect that drift in configuration, in conformance with schemas between sort of what we think is approved and really what has actually been designed or what has actually been built. Um, I think that, that, that... that drift is currently not managed well on projects.

Julie Jupp

And I think that it's only at the end that all of that is actually when it comes to that handover point, that your digital teams are able to sort of catch up and things are done to sort of post completion at the end, almost.

Julie Jupp

So, and it's never been designed to run that way. You know, it's a parallel process and you need to keep pace with the day-to-day design and construction processes.

Andrea Ciaffi

And, as the environment changes with this new innovation, and... probably new skills will be required. And I wonder if you think that there are, what are the skills that... You believe it will become essential, but are not widely taught at the moment.

Julie Jupp

Hmm. I think there's a lot of skills that aren't quietly taught at the moment. I think that formally taught, I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot of, you know, teaching that goes on, of course, within project organisations that have set up really good standards and policies internally, particularly where that's being acknowledged and managed by the board.

Julie Jupp

I think as you would manage risk and as you would manage safety, where you see the real success stories are in those organisations, whether they be tier 2 or tier one, particularly contractors who have really, there's a remit of the board that they will either govern digital transformation or digital engineering.

Julie Jupp

And so you have, you know, the really obvious ones like Lang O'Rourke, for example, who have their sort of digital minimum standard. But then you have organisations that are still sort of almost in that pilot phase where it's really used opportunistically.

Julie Jupp

And when the contract requires it, we'll employ the A team when that contract comes or we'll put our B team on it because it's not necessarily the requirements aren't that. that demanding. But I'm not answering your question in terms of what are the skills that I think will become essential.

Julie Jupp

I think sort of leading on from that point, I think really change literacy and configuration literacy is really one of the changes, I think more of an obvious one in terms of if you talk to a digital engineer today or a BIM manager, for example, They'll often tell you that, you know, 50% of what they do in their day-to-day is managing change in the project team.

Julie Jupp

Configuration management, probably less so, although I think it's a terminology thing, but I think we're talking about the same thing in terms of, you know, managing verification and validation. of information requirements, which of course what we're doing here though is we're verifying and validating the design.

Julie Jupp

And it's not just it's the information that is represented in the design, but its function. And so baseline control and traceability and I think managing sort of multiple sources of truth really are kind of covered under that configuration and change literacy banner.

Julie Jupp

And that to move forward to overcome many of the problems that we see today, I think is really an essential skill that more engineers, not just digital engineers, but more engineers need to be able to be fluent in.

Julie Jupp

And then broadly speaking, I think sort of at sort of at a tactical level, I think at a strategic level and at an operational level, I think data governance in practice. is another essential skill. So not, you know, just understanding the policy documents themselves or the standards themselves, but the actual mechanisms and the roles, the responsibilities and the reporting.

Julie Jupp

I think we're still doing too much manual reporting. And we see this particularly in government agencies who have adopted digital engineering. They're still not establishing dashboards at the level that they could be leveraging so as to automate that for milestone reporting, for example.

Julie Jupp

So there's a lot of productivity gains that I think through good data governance practise more broadly across your sort of. sort of strategic senior executive level, at your organisational level with your managers, and then at your coal face.

Julie Jupp

I think many of the things that we see at the coal face always come back to not having good data governance practises able to be implemented, because I see many project teams. Um, designing them, making other project stakeholders aware, but... Quite often they're dismissed as sort of just being an overhead.

Andrea Ciaffi

And we are close to the end of this episode, but I would like to talk about the next generation of digital engineers. And I'm just keen to know what's your advice for somebody who is entering the workforce or starting this journey? How can they excel?

Andrea Ciaffi

What can they do to be successful in this space?

Julie Jupp

Well, I think. We've really learned a lot in developing the micro-credentials from a client agency perspective, from an industry perspective, and from an educational standpoint as well in terms of what works in this very complex nexus of, you know, the digital delivery ecosystem.

Julie Jupp

I think it's really apparent to me that you need to do three things. You need to learn how to articulate value and to do that in delivery terms, right, in terms of risk, cost, time, and safety. Oh, and carbon, right? I mean, that's the next frontier.

Julie Jupp

that is hopefully what is going to actually help sustain the momentum now that we've sort of, well, at least within a New South Wales context, you know, we're really coming off a decade of infrastructure transport investment and losing some of the investment. and momentum that we've seen in digital engineering that has really progressed.

Julie Jupp

So I think articulating, communicating value. I think don't become tool defined. You know, build your principles first in terms of your competencies. And Yeah, I think being able to communicate, you know, if you're not able to influence, whether that be a colleague or whether that be a client or someone within the supply chain, you really can't progress the implementation of digital engineering.

Andrea Ciaffi

Thanks, Julie. So we are at the end of the episode. If people want to reach out to you, where can they find you?

Julie Jupp

Easiest to contact me on LinkedIn, just send me a message on LinkedIn, else you can Google Julie Jump and UTS and grab my e-mail address, julie. jump atuts.com.au.

Andrea Ciaffi

Thanks, Julie. This was a very insightful conversation and I've learned a lot about how education is shaping the future of digital engineering. Thank you, Julie.

Julie Jupp

No problem. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.