Craig has played a key role in developing digital strategy at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), launching the first ABC News and Current Affairs web sites in the 90s. Craig’s decades long career in digital publishing has been focused on identifying the potential of new technologies to improve media and communications, designing innovative products and developing the production systems and workflows to support them. ABC News has been a pioneer in using live blogging, data journalism, newsletters, interactive maps, podcasts, web syndication and distribution, push notifications, interactive video and AI-based platforms to deliver news. One project, ABC News on Facebook Messenger, was praised internationally as a leading example of a successful news bot and opened up new directions for the ABC in conversational AI, including launching products ABC News, ABC Emergency, ABC Kids, ABC iView and ABC radio stations on interactive voice platforms. Craig says instinct is helpful in ‘picking the next wave’ but research, immersion, experimentation and just ‘paddling really hard’ are the essential elements in keeping pace with the future.
Whilst at GenAI Lab as an Industry Fellow, Craig will work with the team on some practical experiments in the university environment, as well as collaborating with us on our tools and methods for uplifting knowledge and capabilities and exploring their applicability to the ABC context.