Australian Spatial Analytics

Happy Autistic Pride Day everyone! Today, we celebrate the brilliance, creativity, and strength of autistic people everywhere.

We know all too well that makes our lives so much richer!

We're excited to be partnering with Team Cohesion, who are neurodiversity employment specialists!

As part of this collaboration, Amy Bastiaansen (pictured with our analysts), Team Cohesion's Autism Employment Specialist, is working with us as a People and Pathways Coordinator, supporting our young neurodivergent adults to gain real work experience, develop workplace skills and work towards individual employment goals.

What’s great about this partnership is seeing neuroinclusive employment organisations working together towards a shared goal of creating meaningful employment opportunities for neurodivergent people.

When like-minded organisations share expertise, support each other and remain focused on strengths-based employment, we can create real change by creating pathways to employment, supporting career development and helping neurodivergent people achieve their professional goals.

📍 Learn more about what Team Cohesion does at their website: https://www.teamcohesion.com.au/

Tanya Plibersek Amanda Rishworth MP Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

Australia's rail infrastructure is more data-driven than ever. And the talent helping build it is coming from an unexpected place.

Two of our young neurodivergent Data Analysts, Amelia Caddie and Benjamin Jarrett, spent years being passed over in traditional hiring processes. Not because of their skills, but because the job interview process screened them out.

Here's the reality:
→ The autistic unemployment rate in Australia is 34%
→ The rail industry faces a critical skills shortage, especially in ‘big data’ roles

These two facts don't have to coexist. Today, they're digitising underground utility networks and converting engineering drawings into GIS data for Australia’s rail projects, such as the Level Crossing Removal Project with Fulton Hogan.

Read the full feature here in Rail Express: https://www.railexpress.com.au/neurodivergent-talent-driving-australias-rail-data-boom/

📍 Learn more about what we do at our website: https://www.asanalytics.com.au/

Queensland Rail Governor-General of Australia

Neurodivergent talent driving Australia’s rail data boom - Rail Express Two data analysts diagnosed with autism share their journey – from struggling to find a job to making a difference on complex projects.

This is a great opportunity for anyone involved in the disability space to have their story told to a massive audience. Great to see this ABC Australia and International Day of People with Disability - Australia partnership come to life.

We can vouch for how invaluable media coverage from the ABC can be for not-for-profits like us. One example was this story that aired in 2024 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-19/autistic-employees-excel-at-innovative-software-company/104368190. Let's just say our website visits spiked a bit after the story reached over 750,000 views on ABC's TikTok channel, one of their most popular posts for that year!

Calling all budding storytellers living with disability If you are an emerging content maker or journalist with disability and have a story to tell, now is your chance to work with the ABC to tell it.

John Holland is one of Australia’s leading construction companies, building critical infrastructure across multiple sectors.

They engaged our young analysts to deliver over 4,000 As-built drawings and conformance reports for a major project on the Gold Coast. Our analysts used digital engineering and task management programs such as 12d, 12d Synergy and ClickUp to deliver this essential work. It also provided on-the-job training opportunities for over 20 analysts or eight full-time equivalent positions! You can see some of the team involved with the project in the photo!

Andrew Fenwick, the Senior Survey Manager, said, "When ASA came on board during a crucial point in the project, they quickly became an essential part of our workflow, focusing on survey As-built support. ASA were thorough, dependable and helped us push through a significant backlog of requests. I was so impressed with their performance that I expanded their scope of work, and they continued to deliver excellent results. ASA has been a standout partner, and I look forward to working with them again in the future."

We would like to thank everyone involved for giving our analysts this invaluable opportunity to build their skills, while creating enormous social impact through their supply chains for autistic Australians facing a 34% unemployment rate.

Meet our analysts who treat Nintendo Mario Kart like a peer-reviewed study!

Every month, our team organise a Friday afternoon social event, and last week was Mario Kart May! This might seem unusual, but an interest in computer games is one of the transferable skills we value highly for the and professions.

Why? Because computer games help with:
🗺️ Spatial reasoning
🎯 Precision under pressure, and an
🍌 Excellent banana peel placement strategy 😊

Computer games, especially those involving racing, constantly demand that players mentally rotate objects, navigate 3D environments, judge distances, and understand elevation and topology. Many use maps and route planning. Most involve systems thinking and pattern recognition. These skills are crucial for ‘big data’ professions such as Geographic Information Systems analysis, LiDAR processing, and digital twin construction.

At ASA, we actively celebrate the gaming skills of our analysts! Neurodiversity + geospatial/digital skills + Mario Kart dominance = an unbeatable team! 🏆

F1 World Champion Lando Norris started on a simulator. Just saying! 🏎️🍄

Find out more about what we do at our website: https://www.asanalytics.com.au

34%. That's the unemployment rate for autistic people in Australia. Eight times the national average. Not because of a lack of ability. But unfortunately, due to archaic hiring practices.

Our CEO, Geoffrey Smith, the 2025 Queensland Australian of the Year, decided to do something about it. In 2020, he co-founded Australian Spatial Analytics (ASA) to provide long-term unemployed young autistic adults with high-demand tech skills in the geospatial and engineering fields. Six years later, ASA has supported over 250 ‘big data’ careers and over 100 successful employment transitions.

The irony is that the changes required to make workplaces neuroinclusive are surprisingly simple and have little to no cost.

Here's what every HR department can learn from ASA right now:

🔹 Ditch the traditional job interview. Providing questions 48 hours in advance eliminates anxiety and reveals actual capabilities. You'll discover talent you've been screening out for years.

🔹 Ask everyone about their needs at work, not just your neurodivergent cohort. Accommodations like structured days and hours, reduced lighting, or clear task lists benefit the entire team. Inclusion isn't a special favour or a ‘nice to do’ action. It’s good management and increases productivity and profitability.

🔹 Stop waiting for the ‘right’ candidate. Neurodivergent people represent 20% of the population. That’s five million Australians and 1.6 billion people worldwide. If your recruitment process is filtering them out, you're not being selective. You're being wasteful.

We often hear many organisations complain about the ‘talent shortage.’ But the talent is there, right under their noses. The question is whether your hiring process is designed to find it.

Want to find out more? Check out this interview with Diane Strand from Authority Magazine.

📖 Click here: https://medium.com/authority-magazine/how-tech-pioneer-geoffrey-smith-is-dismantling-archaic-hiring-practices-to-unleash-an-untapped-a00815980eb8

How Tech Pioneer Geoffrey Smith Is Dismantling ‘Archaic’ Hiring Practices to Unleash an Untapped… “My challenge to every organization in the world is to make neurodiversity fit by tweaking a few things, because you are missing out on an…

Data, data, and more data.

That was the overwhelming theme of the Future of Construction FCON conference last week in . The event brought together over 1000 people in the construction industry who are all dealing with the same challenges: workforce shortages, digital transformation, delivery certainty, and the enormous opportunity of Queensland’s largest-ever infrastructure investment, Brisbane 2032.

Here's what it means for us.

1. Data is critical for construction. Your ‘single source of truth’ needs to be accurate and connected to enable efficiencies and better decisions. The ‘digital twin’ of a project is as complex as the physical one. Someone has to build and maintain it.

2. The workforce problem won't be solved by the same talent pipelines that created it. The construction industry critically needs new sources of skilled, loyal, precise data professionals. But they already exist – young autistic adults facing a 34% unemployment rate. They're just overlooked.

Australian Spatial Analytics has the answer to both of these problems. If we spoke at FCON26, it was great talking to you. If we didn't, please get in touch with us to find out more.

Find out more at https://www.asanalytics.com.au/

We’d like to welcome two new ASA board members – Jolie Baasch and Mudit Srivastav! They are both passionate about creating social change and will bring a wealth of experience to help shape our future!

Jolie is a data and analytics executive with extensive experience in strategy, having led and transformed organisations across software, financial services, property, and government sectors. Currently at The Australian National University, this expertise, combined with her governance credentials and demonstrated commitment to inclusive workforce development, makes her a valuable addition to the ASA board.

Mudit is an executive with experience across technology, data and AI across multiple sectors. He has been recognised as a thought leader in building data-driven organisational cultures. His combination of deep expertise in AI, advanced analytics and executive leadership across large, regulated industries will also bring invaluable insights to ASA.

We look forward to working with Jolie and Mudit alongside existing board members Alex McDonald, Alice Walker, Emma Charlton and Susan Bannigan to drive our mission to make mainstream! Welcome!

ASA would also like to thank departing board member George Curran, who was there right from our inception in 2020, for helping us reach where we are today!

Geoffrey Smith and Andrew Fenwick are at the Future of Construction conference today! Check out their roundtable at 3pm. Details below!
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Brisbane 2032 is Queensland’s biggest ever opportunity to create an enormous social impact for disadvantaged people. It’s not just a ‘big construction project’. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

As the Queensland Government embarks on its largest-ever infrastructure investment, it can leverage multi-billion-dollar supply chains to dismantle employment barriers for disadvantaged Queenslanders, including young autistic adults facing a staggering 34% unemployment rate.

But how do we do it? Our CEO, Geoffrey Smith, the 2025 Queensland Australian of the Year, and Andrew Fenwick, Senior Survey Manager at John Holland, will host a roundtable titled ‘Creating Impact through Social Procurement’ at the Future of Construction Summit (FCON26).

Find out how everyone involved in the delivery of Brisbane 2032, from government to consultants and contractors, can transform the lives of countless people by sourcing goods and services from social enterprises.

When: Wednesday 20 May 2026
What: Track 3 Project Delivery, Roundtable 4, Creating Impact through Social Procurement
Where: Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre

As a teaser, check out our Brisbane 2032 Capability Statement here!https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/63588a662749b87e7afb9765/6837ba1eb5dc05aecd36bbcb_Brisbane%202032%20Capability%20Statement.pdf Inside, you’ll discover the relevant real-world projects that are directly applicable to delivering Brisbane 2032, whilst creating a social legacy like that generated by Paris 2024.

Find out more about the conference and download the program here: https://futureofconstructionsummit.com/. See you there! P.S. Use the code SPEAKER10 for 10% off the current ticket price.