*This is an abstract only. No full paper is available for this abstract.* The iron ore price hangs over Australia's national economy like a mercurial CEO - sometimes instilling unrestrained confidence and risk taking, sometimes driving downsizing and restructuring and sometimes instilling thoughts about how to diversify business. But behind the fluctuations of the iron ore price there is a constant rising demand for iron ore to support global economic development and a continued striving for innovation that will allow greater efficiency and productivity in supplying that demand._x000D_
The amount of funding available for innovation fluctuates with the market cycle. Nevertheless, innovation in the iron ore business is inexorable as companies strive to retain competitiveness in a global marketplace. The iron ore industry applies many modern technology development concepts (such as robotics, sensors, sensor networks and remote control, data analytics, water and energy efficiency and nano and biotechnology) to the evolution of iron ore operations. With these operations dominating local communities in terms of economics, demographics and environmental services, innovation in the iron ore industry becomes a driver of long- and short-term change._x000D_
Perhaps understandably, the public/policy debate (again with notable exceptions) tends to focus on the short-term impacts of the iron ore price; however, given the current scale of the industry, long-term changes will fundamentally affect the future of Australia. This presentation will look more broadly at the interdependency between the iron ore industry, innovation and social change. It will describe current innovations, the global megatrends that drive them and the long-term evolution of Australian business that may result._x000D_
CITATION: Littleboy, A, 2015. Iron ore, innovation and a (not so) quiet revolution, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2015, pp 15-16 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).