Global Speakers

Rocky Scopelliti is a world-renowned futurologist. His pioneering research on the confluence of demographic change associated with Millennials, and digital technology, have influenced the way we think about our social, cultural, economic and technological future. His new book ‘Youthquake 4.0 – A Whole Generation and the New Industrial Revolution’ will be launched in September 2018.

As a media commentator, his unique insights have featured on SKY Business News, The Australian Financial Review, ABC Radio National, The Economist, Forbes and Bloomberg. As an international key note speaker, his presentations have captivated audiences across Asia Pacific, the USA and Europe including Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. As a thought-leader, over 150 boards and leadership teams, including Fortune 100 corporations, each year seek his advice on strategy.

A distinguished author, his 12 published thought-leadership research reports have become internationally recognised for their influence including the World Economic Forum’s Disruptive Innovation in Financial Services Program.

In an executive capacity, he is a member of the Optus Business Leadership team as the Director, Centre for Industry 4.0 where he leads the specialist team creating world class thought-leadership and innovation to guide enterprises on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In a non-executive capacity, he is director on the board of Community First Credit Union, a member of the REST Super Technology Advisory Panel and member of the Australian Payments Council.

Educated in Australia and trained in the USA at Sydney and Stanford Universities respectively, he has a Graduate Diploma in Corporate Management and an MBA. He is also a graduate and member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Greg has over 30 years in the technology industry in a career that has spanned the globe and encompassed working as a Supplier and a Customer. A financial services specialist he has implemented  core system replacements in Asia, the UK, and the United States and has worked on 13 different Financial Services M&A activities.

From an early career in Australian Financial services Greg joined IBM and  spent a number of years travelling the world as a Financial Services specialist with his highlight being the lead architect in the  growth of a fledgling Minnesota based First Bank systems into the 5th largest bank in the United States, US Bancorp.  Since 2000 Greg has worked largely within Australia filling General management and CIO roles at St George Bank, ING Australia, ANZ Bank, and now most recently at RACQ. Greg has a Masters of Management, an MBA, and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Dr Sarah Dods is a science & technology maven, and an entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial leader.   Her current role is with Australia Post as an Innovation Business Owner, developing opportunities to solve new and emerging challenges in the digital world through leveraging Australia Post’s unique assets and market position.

Sarah’s career spans “deep-tech” in Australia’s innovation system, from public and private research organisations to high-tech startups, spanning resources, telecoms, healthcare, & trust industries, and moving from the laboratory bench to commercialisation, business development and business leadership.  This smorgasbord includes 13 years as an academic, solving problems in optical broadband network engineering (think NBN), which culminated in co-founding Monitoring Division, NICTA’s first Victorian spin out company.  She led CSIRO research programs in the Digital Economy and Health Service Delivery, and was responsible for implementing CSIRO’s entrepreneurship and innovation program.

Sarah’s deep passion is in realising economic and social value from technology advances; to bridge the gap between research challenges, market opportunities, and implementable solutions to create value and make a difference for everyday Australians and our businesses. She is a fan of life-long learning, a believer in the value of diversity, and an incurable optimist.

Dr Dods qualifications include a B.Sc(hons) in Physics and a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, both from the University of Melbourne.  She has 3 patents and 70 refereed publications to her name, and is a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Warwick has worked in defence, health and taxation and has been involved in analytics for over 20 years. He is a practicing analytics professional and is currently convenor of the Whole of Government Data Analytics Centre of Excellence and is a senior data scientist in the Data Science and Special Purpose Acquisition Group of the Smarter Data Program of the ATO. He has a BSc from the University of New South Wales and a PhD from the University of New England Australia. His professional interests include organizational innovation and learning, organizational decision making and analytics with particular interest in digital fingerprinting and its application to customer profiling, precision medicine and fraud detection.

Prof Y. Jay Guo is a Distinguished Professor and the founding Director of the Global Big Data Technologies Centre at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).  Prior to this appointment in 2014, he served as a Research Director at the CSIRO for over nine years, overseeing a number of ICT research portfolios. Before joining CSIRO, Jay held various senior leadership positions in Fujitsu, Siemens and NEC in the U.K.

Jay is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Engineering and Technology, a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of IET, and a member of the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) College of Experts. He has won a number of prestigious Australian national awards, and was named one of the top 100 most influential engineers in Australia in 2014 and 2015 respectively. His research interests include antennas, mm-wave and THz communications and sensing systems, as well as big data.  He is a world-leading researcher in reconfigurable antennas.

Jay has published three books, over 400 publications in academic journals and conferences, and holds over 20 patents.

Eva believes that innovation thrives in organisations where innovation is systemic and for everyone, not just special teams. Her passion is embedding mindsets, structures and capability across organisations to enable a culture where people are empowered to pursue opportunities at every level of the innovation spectrum, to deliver change that adds value for staff, customers and communities.

Yuan is a Digital associate partner in automation, AI, IoT in Digital McKinsey. He has 10+ years of experience and has turned many blue-sky ideas into real products across many industries in Australia and New Zealand. From his experience, he has built deep expertise across multiple technical domains such as RPA, DevOps, enterprise digitization, modern architecture, machine learning, AI and IoT. He served many clients to execute their business initiatives innovatively with cutting-edge technologies. By joining forces of his cross-domain knowledge, Yuan created a framework significantly reduces time and complexity in deploying software robots and a physical humanoid robot does enterprise automation.

Additionally, Yuan also revolutionized many traditional IT platforms to be future proof and helped them embark on a cloud-first journey. In addition to Yuan’s enterprise experience, he also founded a digital agency and launched a product awarded top 10 Australia start-ups by Google & G.A in 2014.

Keerthi Iyengar is an Expert Associate Partner at McKinsey specializing in Digital Transformations and Technology Modernization. He has extensive experience in banking, eRetail and telcom industries having launched digital only banks across Africa and South East Asia, as well as transforming traditional organizations towards full digital eSales and eCare. Keerthi has most recently helped companies on digital topics including API and microservices strategy, Digital Marketing, Core Banking Transformations, DevOps and Enterprise Data Architecture.

Dr. Amit Kumar Gupta is an AI Research Lead at Canon Information Systems Research Australia – a leading Canon R&D lab. Amit has been actively involved in leading machine learning based research activities for computer vision applications at Canon.

Amit has completed his PhD at UNSW and his Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Amit is an inventor/co-inventor of more than 15 patent applications/grants and had extensively published in leading image and video processing publications. Amit has been directly involved in creating smart camera algorithms powering some of the intelligent functions of Canon’s network cameras.

Amit won financial support for the best student paper at IEEE ISCAS 2005 conference and Altera Nios design award on his JPEG2000 work. Amit current research interests are AI/Machine Learning for computer vision applications and the impact of computer vision on our environment and life.

Joydeep Das is an experienced Program and Portfolio leader working with large enterprises in the Telecom and Banking sectors to transform businesses using innovative technology solutions.

Joydeep is a passionate leader who believes in developing and empowering people to achieve strong business outcomes.

Joydeep has led several technology programs to success in the Information Technology and Professional Services industries.

Joydeep has played a variety of leadership roles involving software engineering, integration, service delivery, network and infrastructure delivery and customer account management in Australia, USA and India. During this time he has worked with multi-national organizations like Telstra, NAB, Infosys, Microsoft and Cisco.

Joydeep is an Electronics and Communication Engineer and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Melbourne Business School.

Outside work Joydeep enjoys spending time with his family and is actively involved with his kids’ music and sporting activities.

Mark is Executive Director of the Centre for Business Analytics at Melbourne Business School. Mark’s previous roles include Strategy Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group and Strategy Development Manager with Australia’s largest health insurer, Medibank.

Mark then moved into Data Strategy before founding his own consultancy, Alexander Consulting. Specialising in data strategy, clients included Financial Services, Health, Utilities, Entertainment, and Recruitment. Mark is also the founder of Data Science Solutions Pty Ltd offering contract data science solutions and recruitment services.

Mark completed his MBA at Melbourne Business School where he won the John Clemenger Medal as Dux of School with the highest GPA. Mark has also won two entrepreneurial business plan competitions:
– 2004 University of Queensland Enterprize Competition 1st Prize $100,000
– 2009 Melbourne University Entrepreneurial Challenge 1st Prize $23,000

Prior to completing his MBA, Mark was the Sports Physiotherapist to the Australian Olympic Triathlon team. He attended two Olympics and two Commonwealth Games supporting the team to win 3 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze medals. Mark also held the position of Director and Senior lecturer of La Trobe University’s post-graduate Master of Sports Physiotherapy program.

Mark is the founder of BakPhysio Pty Ltd, where he invented and patented BakBalls, the Neckrest and Backrest self-management devices for back and neck pain. He has written a book called “Beating Back Pain”.

Stephen is the CTO with Greenleaf Enterprises, a Brisbane-based consultancy specialising in global food networks. Stephen has a diverse background in technical consulting, business, rail, insurance, utilities and emergency services managing the end-to-end delivery of technology projects and has now leapt into another industry new to him, food networks and agriculture.

Stephen started his IT career in the late 80’s developing insurance applications in Pascal and since then has ridden the crest of numerous technological tsunamis, from the birth of the internet as we know it in the early 90’s, through to the introduction of mobile phones and mobile internet. With recent developments in Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality, we’re riding the crest of another technology wave. Stephen is champing at the bit to explore how these technologies can be applied in food networks, agriculture and other industries and to share his learnings with developers, businesses, and enthusiasts alike.

Scott leads the digital transformation practice in Asia Pacific for Adobe. He has 20 years of enterprise experience providing strategic advice to C-suite and senior executives in the areas of digital transformation, strategy, marketing, insights, and cloud computing. Scott has advised a broad range of customers (>200 in Asia Pacific) and industries from finance through to retail, media, telecommunications, automotive and high-tech. Examples include Telstra, Citibank, Samsung, Disney, Westpac, L’Oreal & Etihad Airlines.

He is skilled in helping organisations reimagine and transform their customer experience, employee engagement, business models, processes and operations, by understanding the opportunities and challenges that new technologies (automation, AI, robotics, IOT, etc.) can have on businesses, their culture, their customers and the world of work. Scott speaks regularly at Adobe and customer events about the intersection of technology and organisational change, and the resulting opportunities.

Steven is a 19-year lawyer, having spent 10 years in-house at Hewlett- Packard working in leadership positions across the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific, with several years as Vice President, South Pacific General Counsel and Group Secretary. Before that, he worked for the international law firms Norton Rose and Baker McKenzie in London, Sydney and Cologne (Germany) specialising in IT, IP, technology M&A and information technology/applications/ business process outsourcing.

In 2017, Steven founded and is CEO of a legal consulting and solutions company, Gen2Law, specialising in helping legal departments, law firms and law companies innovate and transform to the next generation of legal and ops services. He has pioneered multiple global and regional legal transformations initiatives, implementing and managing complex legal services solutions underpinned by cutting-edge legal technology and lean process combined with innovative people strategies and sourcing models, generating quantifiable business savings and quality improvements.

Steven speaks and writes frequently on the future of legal services, contributing to publications by the Australian Financial Review, the Association of Corporate Counsel and “Remaking Law Firms” by George Beaton, published by the American Bar Association. He holds a First Class honours bachelor’s degree in Psychology (BSc), post-graduate degrees in Law and Legal Practice and completed the Global Leaders in Law MBA at Oxford University. He is admitted as a solicitor in New South Wales (practising) and England and Wales (non-practising).

He was recently appointed as Managing Director, Law Department and Contracts Consulting, Asia Pacific of global law company – Elevate, to further expand Elevate’s consulting practice serving law departments and law firms. Steven was also recently appointed as a Fellow of the College of Law’s new Master of Legal Business program in Australia. He has been an active participant in the legal innovation community for many years, serving on the IACCM Advisory Board and the Law Society of New South Wales’ Future of Law Committee. He collaborates actively with both the ACC and CLOC.

Francisco is a Digital Health leader and entrepreneur with extensive experience leading healthcare projects in Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions.

As a physiotherapist specialising in gerontology and holding a master’s degree in science, health and technology from France, He is passionate about creating digital health products to deliver measurable improvements in the quality of life of people.

He is the co-founder of mPhyt, a digital health and well-being platform that improves communication between seniors, their loved ones and their community by using machine learning algorithms. Currently, He is working as a business and research consultant for different companies in Chile and Australia, including My Medic Watch, an Australian start-up that is innovating in the emergency response and digital health monitoring markets using Artificial Intelligence.

Francisco is committed to improve patients’ experience and health outcomes at a big scale, through the personalisation only new technologies can provide.

Nicholle is a senior finance and FinTech leader, mentor, VC advisor, founder, strategist and innovation coach. Her expertise includes domain expertise in banking, payments, FinTech, RegTech, InsurTech, Blockchain, and technical skills in CX, Biometrics, AI, Digital Transformation and Robotic Process Automation.

Nicholle has worked in top tier organizations banks such as  Merrill Lynch, CBA, NAB and Westpac, and global technology firms Genpact, Unisys and AT Kearney / EDS. Nicholle also acts as an entrepreneurial coach and mentor to new fintech start ups at global hubs Level39 (London), Lattice80 (Singapore) and Stone & Chalk (Sydney). She holds a BEc / LLB (USyd) and an MCom (IT) from UNSW AGSM. In 2016 she completed FinTech programs in London via the London School of Economics (LSE) in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

In 2017 Nicholle became a globally recognised advisor on Blockchain and became a member of the Advisory Board of Arkratos Blockchain Solutions, a new blockchain platform based in Singapore in 2018. Nicholle is currently the Vice President and Transformation Partner for Genpact leading AI, Robotics and Digital Solutions for APAC.

Prof Duh is Head and Professor of Department of Computer Science and IT at La Trobe University, Visiting Professor of Academy of Arts at Tsinghua University and adjunct Professor of Graduate Institute of Journalism at National Taiwan University. He received his degrees in psychology, industrial design and engineering respectively and did his postdoctoral training in NASA-Johnson Space Centre. Before coming to Australia, He headed an international research center joint ventured by National University of Singapore and Keio University, Japan to address research issues on how to create engaging user experiences with innovative digital media leveraging emerging technologies.

Prof. Duh has more than 20 years research experiences on user experiences and interaction design in augmented and virtual reality environments. He is a mentor of HTC VIVE X Accelerator program and periodically advised venture capitals and industry such as Alibaba and NetEase. He is a Fellow of British Computer Society and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visual Languages and Computing and published more than 120 referred articles.

John has 31 years of experience in a variety of technology and executive management roles. These have included engineering and operational roles in telecommunications, networks, wireless, IT, property, software engineering, construction and energy.

John is currently the Chief Product Officer of Saisei, developing network products and applications to drive improvements to network performance, quality of experience and utilisation. Prior, John was Telstra’s CIO accountable for all aspects of IT including cloud and software engineering/operations while leading the transformation to agile ways of working. In addition to the CIO role, John has been the Executive lead for Telstra’s Digital transformation program. Prior, he led the Property division, accountable for the management of Telstra’s owned and leased property portfolio including energy management, leasing, construction and maintenance.

John has held other senior leadership roles involving the acquisition, design, construction and field maintenance of Telstra’s wireless networks. Some of the key achievements in this role include the major rollouts of Telstra’s & CSL’s Hong Kong 3G and 4G wireless networks.

John holds an MBA with an entrepreneurial and international management specialisation coupled with professional qualifications in Engineering, Business and Computing.  In addition, he speaks Italian, studies Mandarin and has lectured in public speaking.

Joe is an Innovation Manager with over 16 years in Fortune 500 companies including Education, Manufacturing, FMCG, Technology and Animation and Software. He has developed expertise in identifying new trends in a wide range of digital media from gaming to mobile development and the rise of AI.

Joe is tasked with leading a team to research the latest emerging technologies for TAFE NSW. The team is currently exploring Augmented & Virtual reality married with Artificial Intelligence to enhance education and training for TAFE NSW and the broader industry.

Glenn is celebrating his thirtieth year in the IT industry. At various times he has worked in nearly all areas of IT from programming and Database Administration through Program Management and IT architecture before settling as an Enterprise Architect. He has spent the last 15 years specialising in CBD and then SOA architectures.

Glenn is founder and CE at Fragile to Agile, a dedicated Enterprise Architecture practice launched in 2009. Our unique approach to business architecture is based on our Integrated Architecture Framework that is inclusive of business, process, people, and technology design at both an enterprise and solution level. It is specifically designed to resonate with both business executives and technologists and has been adopted by organisations within Australia, USA, and Europe.

His clients include Macquarie Group (retail and institutional banks), Delaware Investments, Bank of Shanghai and CBA. Prior to this Glenn was Chief Architect at (Bendigo and) Adelaide bank and preceding that Chief Architect for the ATOs change program, a billion dollar refresh of all ATO systems. His other roles include as the principal architect of Bank of Irelands first online portal for large corporations.

Andrew Churches is a classroom teacher and an ICT enthusiast. He passionately believes that to prepare our students for the future, we must prepare them for change by teaching them to question and think, and to adapt and modify.

He teaches at Kristin School on Auckland’s North Shore, a school with a technology program that encompasses iPads in its classrooms throughout the younger years, and a comprehensive BYOD program in the senior years. Andrew feels this reflects the future our students and children will be entering into with ubiquitous portable computing. he frequently challenges the establish curriculum by integrating emerging technologies like drones, VR & AR into his lessons. The use of these technologies has provided great inspiration for the books he has written. He is a curriculum tutor for teacher trainees at Auckland University of technology.

Andrew is the Vice President of the Global Digital Citizen Foundation, and coauthor of several books including The Digital Diet, The Apps for Learning Series, Mindful Assessment Assessing the fluencies, Growing global digital Citizens and the best-selling book, Literacy is Not Enough.

In 2009, Andrew was a finalist in the Microsoft Distinguished Educators Awards. He has been a member of the advisory board for the Australia and New Zealand edition of the Horizon Report, the only secondary/primary school teacher on a board of 32 educational experts. In 2012, he was also named a Learning Commons Visionary by the editors of Teacher Librarian: The Journal for School Library Professionals. In 2013, he was inducted in to the Apple Distinguished Educator programme for the class of 2013. He is a member of the 2016 National Aspiring Principals Program and Netsafe, the New Zealand Online Safety Organisation. He is an examiner and assessment author for the International Baccalaureate organisation.

Outside of school, Andrew is an outdoor instructor and an adventure enthusiast. He enjoys sharing and presenting his work, research, thoughts and musings. He is an edublogger, tweeter, wiki author, and innovator. He also contributes regularly to a number of websites and blogs including TechLearning, Spectrum Educational Magazine, the Global Digital Citizen Foundation’s blog, and his own Edorigami blog.

Sander is an experienced executive with proven abilities in strategy development, advocacy and shaping debates to help organisations respond in a more integrated way to future challenges and opportunities.

As Director of Policy & Research at the Committee for Melbourne, he is responsible for developing and delivering strategies for change that add value to the long-term development of Greater Melbourne as a major internationally competitive city.

Next to his role at the Committee for Melbourne, Sander is President of the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce Australia and a member of the Advisory Board of Swinburne University’s Smart Cities Research Institute.

Kate Russell is Head of Corporate Partnerships for Startupbootcamp. With a background in media and technology, her passion for innovation has led her to work with startups and scale ups around the globe as well as consulting for established entrepreneurs and companies on marketing and sales strategies. Kate founded two startups and propelled new business models for others in technology, content and mobile marketing. In London and Amsterdam she worked as Head of Media (EMEA) with cutting edge startups Blippar (UK) and Layar (Netherlands) who specialise in augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision technologies creating campaigns for clients like Pepsi, Net-a-Porter.com, Condé Nast and Nestlé. Kate was also Head of Content Sales and Partnerships at News Corporation (Australia). She has worked around the world and has been based in London, Amsterdam and Bangalore.

Michelle Gallaher has been an entrepreneur, science communicator, allied health clinician, advocate and leader in the Australian life sciences and health sector for over 25 years.

Michelle is renowned for her role as a champion of the Victorian biotech industry and in advocating for women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM). She has sponsored, championed and mentored many in the technology, biotechnology and medtech start-up community.

Throughout her career, she has guided change and advanced the implementation of legislation, policy and funding programs in support of biotechnology and medical research in Australia including extending the legislation to allow for wider research scope in IVF and stem cell technology, R&D tax, intellectual property management and gene technology regulation, for example.

Her career spans working as a clinical orthopist diagnosing and treating low vision patients, pharmaceutical marketing and product development, through to executive roles in biotech companies and major national research initiatives. Most recently Michelle has served the Victorian biotech industry as Chief Executive Officer of the peak body for biotechnology and medtech in Victoria, the BioMelbourne Network.

Leaving corporate life in 2014, Michelle entered the world of entrepreneurship, co-founding The Social Science, a unique digital marketing and social media communications agency focused on the science, health, engineering and technology sector.  At the same time co-founding a not-for-profit advocacy group, Women in STEMM Australia.  Michelle is also co-founder in a third startup, SkinLife, developing new products with a therapeutic application in dermatology.

She is a sought-after speaker, mentor, collaborator and influencer particularly on the importance of social media in science and health.  Michelle is a committed contributor to the Victorian community as an Ambassador for the Victoria Against Violence Campaign and a regular at the St Vincent de Paul’s CEO SleepOut in Melbourne.

Michelle has served and continues to serve as a non-executive director and advisor within universities, private and in public companies, not-for-profits and on various government committees and boards throughout her career.

Michelle was awarded the Victorian Telstra Business Woman on the Year 2017 and the Victorian Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 and was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll for Women in 2018.  Michelle was also named as a finalist in the Australian Small Business Awards Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 and the Social Science was the winner of a Westpac 200 Business of Tomorrow award in June 2018.  Michelle is a Fellow of the Australian Institute for Management and a Graduate of the Institute for Company Directors.

Brad Kasell is a Director at Deloitte Digital focussed on helping his clients use emerging technologies to grow their businesses and re-define their competitive advantage. This work starts with the creation of digital platforms but extends through service design, customer experience, and analytics; all harnessed to solve complex business problems.

Prior to joining Deloitte Digital Brad was an executive at McKinsey & Company working with clients on pricing strategy and commercial excellence programs. Brad’s area of expertise is the design and implementation of revenue management systems for Business-to-Business, Retail, and Consumer Packaged Goods companies.

Brad holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in International Business in addition to a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical).

Basil Tambanis is an accomplished executive director and corporate advisor with 20 years of experience building, growing and leading multimillion-dollar organisations. As the founder and managing director of an ASX listed company, he understands the complexities involved in creating scalable, profitable and sustainable businesses that maximise growth and shareholder return. In recent years, he has been advising high growth and innovative startup companies across a diverse portfolio of sectors from fintech to virtual reality.

As a corporate advisor, Basil supports and guides entrepreneurs and executives throughout the business lifecycle, from idea validation, product development, business model innovation, GTM and capital raising, through to the creation of healthy working cultures, board structures and management frameworks. He is particularly interested in applying successful lean startup methodologies in the startup and corporate environments. For companies seeking to raise funds, he helps to identify potential investors, effectively pitch the value proposition, and manage capital raisings/IPO processes and investor relations.