Tom Caska

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(Tom Caska) I am down here at Avoca Bay

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because this is what I love to do in the morning.

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Getting up early, hitting the surf, I feel really calm and still.

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I find myself doing a lot of thought experiments.

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Actually problem solving.

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When I get in I feel refreshed and ready to start the day.

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I was always a really inquisitive child.

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So, I always wanted to understand why and how things worked.

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I think I used to drive my dad crazy.

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I could never accept like a simple answer.

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When I was in Year 8 at school I got struck by lightning.

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I had this little weather station set up.

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I was obsessed with the weather and all things science

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and things like that and this one afternoon I will never forget it,

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the lightning actually struck the top of the tree.

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I got right into science and engineering after that happened.

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Once again, for me it was asking, you know, why did this happen,

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how did it happen, and that kind of set up a bit of a trajectory

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for the rest of my life.

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Once I’ve had my surf it’s home for a quick bite to eat

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before heading down to the city.

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My job is really dynamic.

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I get to do a lot of travelling.

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I get to meet a lot of people

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and I get to work with some really cool technologies

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and every single day is different.

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We’ve built this huge network of drone pilots

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across Australia and New Zealand

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where you can get geospatial information on demand.

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We use all sorts of different bits of software to interpret images

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to build 3D models, engineering models,

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to understand the natural and the built environment.

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We work with a lot of software engineers

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and also aerospace engineers.

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It’s really important to have a really broad skillset

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in the STEM domain to be able to tackle the problems that we have,

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not only for our clients

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but real-world engineering design-thinking solutions.

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I used to actually be an airline pilot for Qantas

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and got right into kite surfing.

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One afternoon I fell out of the sky,

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landed straight on my head and ended up breaking my neck,

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lost my medical clearance to fly as an airline pilot.

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All of a sudden, I was 30 years old,

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I had lost my dream career

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and I really didn’t know what to do with my life.

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I had this little GoPro camera strapped to the bottom of a drone

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and I would sit on a beach while I was recovering

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and I would do some filming and that kind of gave me the idea to

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potentially create a business out of it.

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If you stick with STEM you’re kind of unlimited to what you can actually do.

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You'd be surprised at how useful STEM skills are in so many different applications.

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For me I wasn’t even good at science and maths at school

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but it didn’t matter.

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I mean I run a company today.

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I love it and I get to, you know, use all those skills

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and to me that’s really important.

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Today we’re at a partner company’s warehouse

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where they build long-range, high-tech drones.

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We do environmental monitoring with them.

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We inspect mine sites and coastlines.

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We’ve got thousands and thousands of drone pilots on this network.

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Having a platform that can connect into the Australian Defence Force

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to provide many more eyes in the sky is going to be super critical

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for our border protection.

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In the actual UX UI design

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of our app I get to I get to work my creative side of my brain

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and my analytical side.

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It feels really cool.

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For those of you who are out there who are not really sure what to do,

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don’t be scared to embrace your inner geek.

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It's cool to be geeky.

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