How the mining industry can embrace neurodivergent thinking for efficiency, sustainability, and profitability.
Mining companies generate and store more data than they know what to do with. From significant assets to complex mine plans and rehabilitation areas, the volume and variety of information are staggering. Yet, transforming these swathes of data into actionable insights has been challenging.
The mining industry is also transforming rapidly as it shifts towards digitally-driven infrastructure. This is where Australian Spatial Analytics (ASA) and neurodiversity converge to offer a unique solution to the industry’s ongoing skills shortages.
About ASA
ASA is one of Australia’s largest work-integrated social enterprises, providing geospatial and digital engineering careers for over 220 young neurodivergent adults, including autistic people facing a staggering 34 per cent unemployment rate.
At the same time, these professions are experiencing severe talent shortages, adversely impacting Australia’s ability to deliver critical infrastructure, including mining projects. ASA’s important work is underpinned by an 80 per cent neurodivergent team with unique cognitive strengths.
For example, autistic people often exhibit exceptional attention to detail, pattern recognition, and problem-solving abilities —invaluable qualities in data analysis.
Since starting in 2020, ASA has attracted business from over 40 clients from all levels of government and multiple industries and consistently delivers professional, award-winning, high-quality data services for real-world projects, specialising in geographic information systems (GIS) and digital engineering.
ASA chief executive officer Geoffrey Smith has been recognised internationally for his work on autistic employment and won the 2025 Queensland Australian of the Year.
Neurodiversity and mining: Multiple applications
Neurodivergent people often identify patterns that would be difficult for traditional teams to spot, leading to more efficient and sustainable mining. Examples include creating a ‘single source of truth’ for asset management, assessing environmental impacts, and identifying and implementing offset projects.
For example, ASA’s expertise has been instrumental in digitally documenting one of the world’s largest electrical networks.
Working with Enzen and Energy Queensland, this project merged multiple legacy asset datasets. The result? One of the world’s largest electrical databases, housing over 300,000 subnetworks and 25 million spatial features.
The unified database delivers significant benefits, including improved efficiency in planning, maintenance, and asset management. This project won the 2023 Geospatial Council of Australia Award (Queensland division) for Technical Excellence.
ASA’s experience with Esri’s Utility Network Model (UNM) is of specific interest to the mining sector, transcending utility types including electricity, water and gas.
ASA has also undertaken mining-specific projects, including digitising historic mines for the Department of Regional New South Wales, creating machine learning training datasets to extract extra information from over 100,000 geological reports and processing LiDAR data for mine planning. ASA has also been featured as a case study in ResourcesWide by the Queensland Resources Council.
Mining companies can create enormous social impact from their supply chains
Neurodiversity in mining isn’t a new concept, with some organisations undertaking neurodiversity employment programs. Combining advanced data analytics with the unique talents of neurodivergent individuals creates a powerful synergy, addressing the industry’s skills shortage whilst driving innovation and efficiency.
ASA helps solve skills shortages and data sovereignty/modern slavery concerns by empowering young neurodivergent Australians to perform essential work that typically occurs overseas. Plus, it’s developing tomorrow’s geospatial and engineering workforce from on-the-job training.
The benefits extend beyond operational efficiency. By tapping into the potential of neurodivergent individuals, the mining industry is fostering a more inclusive and diverse workforce, enriching workplace culture and leading to new perspectives and ideas.
The rewards are too significant to ignore. By partnering with organisations like ASA, mining companies can unlock the power of their data, improve operational performance, and contribute to a more sustainable future.
Combining big data and neurodiversity represents a new frontier for the mining industry, promising rich rewards.
Find out how you can embrace (neuro)diversity as a competitive advantage whilst creating social impact at asanalytics.com.au.
