Professor Martin said to ensure that occurred, it would take leadership from the top at a national level.

Speaking at The Illawarra Connection's luncheon on Thursday, he said Wollongong should also look for more opportunities in advance manufacturing.

Professor Martin is now the chief executive of CEDA (Committee for Economic Development of Australia) and lives in Melbourne.

He said the massive wave of computerisation, mechanisation and digital disruption was the greatest industrial revolution the world had ever known and Wollongong was in a good position to take advantage of that in several ways.

A recent CEDA report showed many jobs were about to dramatically change and he said it was important to plan ahead and have strong leadership to make things happen.

"On the back of digital disruption, potentially in urban areas as much as 40 per cent of jobs as we currently know them will disappear," he said.

It was all because technology was rapidly changing the way people did things online.

He said genuine policies needed to be made at government level about education.

"Do not think that the digital disruption and computer technology is going to be our foe," he said.

"We have got to learn to embrace it. "

Professor Martin said the industry growth centres that Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane had put in place were a fabulous idea.

"It identified six areas including advance manufacturing," he said.

Professor Martin said Wollongong saw itself as a city of innovation and had a great technology precinct at the university and success with the Global Challenge program.

"I chair the Advance Manufacturing Global Challenge program at the University of Wollongong where we look at how you can take the smarts associated with advance manufacturing and capitalise on it," he said.

"It is a different form of manufacturing and we have to be proud of that and we have to develop that further."

Professor Martin said an example of what Wollongong could do was be a university that consistently ranked among the world's top universities.

And that is why Professor Martin recommended Wollongong be considered as the location for a national advance manufacturing centre.

"I said that to Ian Macfarlane when we had him on our platform in Canberra two weeks ago talking about advance manufacturing," he said.

"They are still working out where they are going to put this Advance Manufacturing Centre for Australia and I said "put it in Wollongong". I said "you have got a university doing wonderful things. So what you (Wollongong business and civic leaders) need to do is get on to Macfarlane."

Professor Martin said he did not want the steelworks to go from Port Kembla.

"Submarines in South Australia and BlueScope Steel here are core industries for Australia." We cannot afford to let them go."

Professor Martin said buying submarines overseas relied on other countries supplying the software as well as the hardware.

So BlueScope Steel remained a critical component in the national security question.

"I think the Illawarra is on the cusp of something pretty important for us," he said. "But it will be the decision-makers who, in Canberra particularly, will be critical to sustain it."