In collaboration with educational institutions in Queensland, CBA has launched its third technology centre in less than a year and plans to hire 1,000 engineers.
On Tuesday, the national bank showcased its new hub. Along with the University of Queensland (UQ), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and TAFE Queensland, it is situated in Brisbane’s central business district.
The Brisbane-based hub, which offers a route into CBA’s Tech Associates and Graduate programmes as well as additional programmes and sponsorship activities, is anticipated to be a lure for students and graduates.
Each hub, he continued, has a specific concentration, such as Lot Fourteen in Adelaide, which “is really focused on AI and on cybersecurity.”
I’m particularly happy that we’re working with TAFE Queensland; it’s our first collaboration on technical skills with a vocational programme, said Hopper.
According to Hopper, TAFE Queensland’s creative and design facilities are linked to their digital and technology offerings, creating “a really good pipeline” into front-end.
The major objective of the new centre will also serve as a means of luring tech talent to Australia, or more specifically, back to Australia.
“Many of our best performers had to travel outside of Australia to pursue those very elite chances.
“We want to provide people as many different lifestyle choices as we can in order to draw talent back or into the nation, and obviously Queensland’s a very different lifestyle from say, Adelaide, Melbourne [and]… so it’s all about possibilities,” said one official.
According to Hopper, CBA has four grads on staff and aims to hire 150 more.
About 75 of the 200 IT employees we currently have in Melbourne were hired after [the launch in July].
The following hub, according to Hopper, will be headquartered in Perth.
“Bankwest already has a significant tech presence there, but we’re going to start deploying more CBA tech personnel there as well.
Then, following that, we’re probably going to start looking into partnerships on a lesser scale in towns with excellent tech institutions but outside of the range of capital cities.
