Speakers at the Smart E&P 2015 conference
Kylie Armstrong
Program Director Next Generation Spatial Infrastructures
Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information
Kylie's role is to ensure research within the program has the highest user impact. She works with stakeholders to align national policy and initiatives with local user stories. P3 requires broad engagement across many organisations entering into the world of Next Generation Spatial Infrastructures.
Kym Bills
Chief Executive Officer
Western Australian Energy Research Alliance (WA:ERA)
Since August 2011 Kym Bills has been the CEO of the Western Australian Energy Research Alliance (WA:ERA) comprising the CSIRO, Curtin University and The University of Western Australia. He has been a Board Member of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) since 2009.
Before moving to Perth, Kym held a number of senior Federal Public Service roles including as Foundation Executive Director of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) from 1999 to 2009. In 2009 Kym Bills and WA:ERA Chairman David Agostini were tasked by the Commonwealth and Western Australian Ministers to investigate and review the Varanus Island gas pipeline explosions and associated regulatory frameworks. Immediately before WA:ERA, Kym was Project Director for the National Mine Safety Framework project from 2009-2011. Kym holds degrees from 5 universities in Australia and the UK and is a fellow of 7 professional bodies.
Shane Donohoo
Global Director Advanced Analysis
Worley Parsons
Shane Donohoo has been working for Worley Parsons since 1985. He has worked in the analysis and assessment of structures subjected to earthquake, wind, wave impact, thermal and blast loadings in addition to operational loadings. Shane has also been involved in the development of a broad spectrum of specialist software focused on decision support for option selection, portfolio optimisation, emergency management and flood analysis.
Coert Du Plessis
WA Chapter Head
Institute of Analytics Professionalsof Australia (IAPA)
Technophile, chartered accountant, and lead Partner of the Deloitte Analytics practice in Perth, Coert Du Plessis strives to deliver innovative analytics and fresh insights from clients’ data assets to drive radical change in business performance.
With a career spanning over fifteen years, Coert has been fortunate to have worked at a host of international locations including Cape Town, London, Florida, Sydney and Perth for the last six years. Working in fast paced and vibrant cities has allowed Coert to be receptive to new ideas and global concepts which have helped shape his professional career and fresh approach to data analytics.
Coert’s innovative and cutting edge analysis in the areas of mining, oil and gas and construction safety, customer segmentation and asset efficiency has gained national recognition. Over the last five years Coert has built the Perth Data Analytics team from one employee to nearly twenty data scientists and helped the WA marketplace appreciate the developing need for strategic data insights and data driven decisions.
Mauricio Volcan Herrera
Senior Geophysicist
Schlumberger
Senior Geophysicist with 14 years’ experience in the oil industry all with service companies. During this time I have worked on a wide range of different assignments and which has enabled me to obtain an extensive technical understanding of clients' businesses.
I joined Schlumberger in 2001 and progressed from Onsite Support Engineer to G&G domain leader and high level consultant in several locations in Venezuela.
In 2010 I was transferred to the Headquarters office in the UK as Technical Sales Manager. I led the communication and strategy of Geophysics products internal and externally. I also participated in many multi-client events promoting the technology worldwide and in all major successful software evaluation projects.
In 2104 I was promoted to a position in charge of the G&G group as the Geoscience business manager, responsible for products and services in Australia, New Zealand and Papau New Guinea.
Stefan Hrabar
Research Team Leader, Digital Productivity, Autonomous Systems Program
CSIRO
Stefan is a Research Team Leader with the CSIRO Autonomous Systems Program where he leads the Field Robotics Team. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and an Ms. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cape Town. Since 2006 his research has focused on perception and autonomy for rotorcraft Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), including collision avoidance using stereo vision and lidar, as well as dynamic path planning algorithms. He has also developed a number of pre-and-post flight tools for 2D and 3D semi-automated flight planning and UAV dataset visualisation and interaction. He is passionate about widening the civilian use of UAVs and making them more user-friendly by increasing their levels of autonomy and improving the human-machine interaction experience. Stefan serves as the CSIRO Digital Productivity Flagship's key contact in the Energy sector, liaising with the Energy Flagship and external customers in this space. He leads a strategic project on ‘Robotics for Oil and Gas’, developing a number of technology demonstrators including UAV-based lidar mapping and gas sensing.
Neil Kavanagh
Chief Science and Technology Manager
Woodside
Neil joined Woodside in 1999 and has 26 years of oil & gas industry experience. In his current role he is responsible for - the what, how and who of technology development in oil and gas and LNG with a focus on technology-enabled growth.
Previous Woodside roles have included:
- Development Assurance Leader,
- Completions and Subsea Manager,
- Well Integrity Authority,
- Production Technologist --Deepwater Oil
Previous Industry Roles:
- Production Technologist, Australia, Shell Development, Melbourne
- Asset Manager and Production Support, PDO, Oman
- Offshore Campaign Coordinator, Brunei Shell Petroleum
- Explosion Protection Engineer, Shell Expro, Aberdeen
- Graduate Field Engineer, N Sea, Shell Expro, Aberdeen
Education - Engineering Manufacture and Mgt, B Sc (Hons), B Eng (Hons) , Manchester, UK. Interests – connecting new ideas with opportunity and trying new things with new people in new places. Outside work - Organic farmer, musician, father of four, married to Annie. Originates from Leeds, Yorkshire, UK
Jess Kozman
Regional Representative
Professional Petroleum Data Management Association (PPDM)
Jess Kozman is an experienced data management practitioner, exploration geophysicist, and IT professional, and draws on over three decades of experience with operators and service companies in all the major petroleum provinces of the world. He is the Asia-Pacific representative for the Professional Petroleum Data Management (PPDM) Association, and serves as a subject matter expert, instructor, executive coach, and workshop facilitator in the areas of change and project management. His latest assignments include aligning technology adoption and adaptation with organizational growth strategies in an environment of declining commodity prices. He holds patents for the application of predictive analytics to offshore equipment, and is the chief architect of the BIM5 data management maturity methodology.
Ernst Krauss
Chair, WA Branch
Institute of Instrumentation Control and Automation Australia
Ernst has more than 40 years' experience in petrochem, mining and general industries in instrumentation and electrical engineering, both overseas and in Australia. Ernst spent the last twenty years' in reliability and maintenance engineering, asset management and operations support.
In his current position he supports clients in defining asset management solutions, asset performance improvements, carries out operational, integrity and maintenance audits, carries out and manages risk, reliability and maintenance studies, and develops and monitors reliability improvement programs for production facilities.
Ernst is an Instrument / Electrical engineer by trade, having changed his focus from design and projects to reliability and maintenance management (operations support). He holds a Masters of Technology from Deakin University which he obtained in the mid 90's. He is currently Chairperson of the Insitute of Instrumentation and Controils Western Australin Branch. He is a member of the Executive of the Asset Management Council, where he also fulfils the role of Editor in Chief.
Paul Lucey
Group Head of Technology and Innovation
Gold Fields Australia
Nick McNaughton
Technology Manager
Subsea Engineering Associates
Nick McNaughton graduated from UWA with Bachelors of Engineering (Mechanical) and Commerce (Management), and has spent his career working in the engineering consulting environment for Perth’s resource and energy sectors. Nick has gained experience leading project teams and performing detailed engineering through the design, fabrication, commissioning and delivery of subsea equipment and intervention solutions to projects around the world. With particular expertise in delivery of tooling packages for critical applications in emergency response (lost production) scenarios, Nick has developed experience engineering bespoke remote solutions for both diver and diverless applications. As Technology Manager for Subsea Engineering Associates, Nick is responsible for managing a portfolio of technology and research projects that aim to deliver a step change in cost, risk and performance for the offshore and subsea operations of SEA’s clients.
Adrian Pounder
Group IT Manager
Oilex
With over 16 years IT experience (11 years Oil and Gas) Adrian is well versed in the junior upstream Oil and Gas sector. He has spent a lot of his time in the field implementing and overseeing real time transmission networks as well as various head offices and project offices around the world giving him a comprehensive understanding of not only setting up projects to deliver the information, he also knows what data is required and the importance of it at its destination.
Adrian is currently the Group IT Manager for Oilex and Consulting to Transform Exploration, Lion Energy and La Societe Global Petroleum. He is responsible for setting up, maintaining and managing multiple multination IT units including, India, Oman, East Timor, Indonesia, Chad and Australia often relaying real-time drilling and seismic information to head offices.
Satyam Priyadarshy
Chief Data Scientist
Halliburton
Dr. Satyam Priyadarshy is the Chief Data Scientist at Halliburton. Previously, he was the VP of Data Science at Acxiom Corporation. He is a well-recognised global leader in areas of Big Data and Data Science. Prior to Acxiom, he was the Chief Knowledge Officer and VP of Analytics at Network Solutions (now web.com). A direct report to the Chairman and CEO of Network Solutions and a member of the senior leadership team, Dr. Priyadarshy provided strategic leadership to improve products and services. He led the transformation of the main revenue channel the, ecommerce storefront, from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 technologies. Dr, Priyadarshy has breadth of scientific knowledge, in-depth technology experience and extensive business acumen.
Dr. Priyadarshy is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches Advanced Analytics and E-Commerce Strategy. Prior to that he was Adjunct Professor at the School of Management, George Mason University.
He is also a Senior Fellow, at the International Cyber Security Center at George Mason University.
Recently, he was named at one of the top 50 candidates in the country for nomination to corporate board, as Digital Director, by The Agenda Digital 50, the Financial Times Publication.
Dr. Priyadarshy has held various academic and research positions at various universities and institutes including Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, The University of Pittsburgh, The University of Sydney, Australia, and IIT Bombay, India. He has been a principal and co- investigator of multiple High Performance Supercomputing Projects.
Dr. Priyadarshy obtained his MBA from Virginia Tech and Ph.D. from IIT Bombay. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, ACS, and Phi Lambda Upsilon. He is also President-Elect of the DC chapter of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs, one of the world's largest entrepreneur networks). He is also a board member of various educational institutes and emerging technology companies.
Aparna Raman
Managing Director Australasia
Schlumberger
Aparna Raman is the Managing Director of Schlumberger Australia and the Geomarket Manager of Schlumberger Australasia, a position she assumed in January 2014. Based in Perth, she is responsible for over 20 Schlumberger businesses across Australia, New Zealand, PNG and Timor Leste.
Previously, Aparna has held a variety of senior positions within Schlumberger internationally including Vice President of Well Services for Asia Pacific (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), North American Business Transformation Manager (Houston, USA), New Technology Development Manager for Hydraulic Fracturing Equipment (Houston, USA), Well Services and Coiled Tubing Drilling Operations Manager in Alaska (Anchorage, USA) and Regional HR Manager in Europe/Africa/Russia (Paris, France)
Aparna holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. She joined Schlumberger as a Field Engineer in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in 1996.
Paul Rushton
General Manager Engineering
Clough
Paul has over 30 years of experience in engineering & design management, detailed engineering design, documentation, contract administration, project management and construction management for a wide range of resource development projects, including oil & gas, LNG, petrochemical, minerals processing, mining, materials handling, industrial and commercial.
Extensive experience in 3D intelligent / data-centric design systems, project delivery techniques and associated workflows which have provided significant cost and schedule benefits on a range of major projects. Paul has specialist expertise in the engineering design and delivery of major resource development projects using 3D intelligent systems and integrated engineering data systems; providing significant productivity, efficiency, cost and schedule benefits throughout the project development lifecycle and into operations.
Paul is also a structural engineering specialist with extensive experience in the field of structural engineering, including preassembly / modularisation and automated structural steelwork delivery techniques that improve value by integrating processes throughout the design, shop detailing, fabrication and erection phases.
Steve Scillitani
Director of Solution Services for the Integrated Operations Program
Petronas (Malaysia)
Steve’s career spans over 30 years in the E&P industry with Schlumberger and BP focused on applying software technology and digital data integration in the fields of geology, geophysics, and Petroleum Engineering; in particular, the combination of online data, predictive models, and work flow automation to streamline operational decision support systems.
Steve possesses an Earth Science degree from Clarion University, USA and is Advisor of the Schlumberger petro-technical community. He has authored several industry papers/presentations including: “The Digital Oil Field, Lessons Learned” SPE WA Lecture Series-13;“Digital oil fields impacting process more than technology”, Oil and Gas News-10; “The Journey to Integrated Operations from Data Managers to Digital Petroleum Engineers”, ECIM-09; “Experiences in Production Data Management Solutions and Real-Time Production Visualization”, ECIM-08; “GIS use and development at Schlumberger”, EPUG-Geodata-09; “Evolving Dimensions of National Data Centers”, Oilfield Review-06; “The Future is Now: Meeting the Demand for a New Breed Of Digital Petroleum Engineers”, NPF Intelligent Fields-09.
Soren Soe
Project Leader
DET CRC (Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre)
Soren has held various Project, Engineering and Executive leadership positions since completing his Bachelor of Science in Engineering in 1991. He has worked extensively with leading the development of onshore drilling rigs for mineral exploration, production holes, geotechnical applications and coiled tubing rigs for the oil and gas industry.
During his career Soren has expatriated to China, The Netherlands and Poland with such companies as Knebel Drilling A/S, Boart Longyear and A.P.Moller Maersk.
Neil Stringfellow
Executive Director
iVec
Neil joins iVEC from the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) where he has held multiple roles involving application and science support and management of strategic partnerships. Key positions held during his tenure were Head of Scientific Computing and Associate Director in charge of the National Supercomputing Service.
In this latter role he was in charge of all aspects of managing Switzerland’s flagship supercomputing systems, including the introduction and operation of a Cray XT5 that occupied the 21st position on the list of the world’s top 500 supercomputers, provisioning user and application support for systems, and running a merit allocation process.
Neil brings to iVEC his experience in a number of European projects such as the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE ) and the Human Brain Project , which was recently selected as a winner of the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies program. He has a PhD in Mathematics from Cranfield University in the United Kingdom and has over 15 years’ experience in the supercomputing sector.
Prasanna Venkatesh
Head of Strategy, Transformation & Enterprise Architecture
Oil Search
Prasanna is an experienced professional with over 16 years achievement in business and IT strategy development and planning including roadmap definition, enterprise and solution architecture), governance and practice management, delivery including driving and implementing effective business and technology transformation through strong and effective change management of diverse stakeholders. He is an engineer by training with an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management.
Prasanna’s consulting and industry experience spans large and complex multinational organisations within oil and gas, resources, engineering & construction, telecommunications, utilities, financial services, transportation and logistics, retail, public sector, healthcare, and education sectors.
He is currently responsible for all aspects of IT strategy, architecture and planning including business engagement at Oil Search in Sydney.
Tim Walton
Director, Energy Research Initiatives
Curtin University
Tim Walton is the Director, Energy Research Initiatives, within Curtin University’s Office of Research and Development in Perth, Western Australia.
His role is focused on developing the university’s conventional, unconventional and renewable fuel, energy and power transmission capabilities, chiefly through building research collaborations.
With a professional background in corporate communications, government policy and strategy Tim has extensive experience in science leadership and administration, particularly within the Western Australian Government’s science and innovation portfolio.
He has previously worked in a diverse range of areas including conservation education, natural resources management, policy and regulation, heavy industry and port logistics.
He holds an Arts degree in English from Edith Cowan University, a Master of Business Administration qualification from Curtin University and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
As well as his position with the Australian Centre for Natural Gas Management, Tim is currently a board member of the Western Australian Energy Research Alliance; the Western Australian Geothermal Centre of Excellence; the Centre for Research into Energy for Sustainable Transport; and a steering committee member the Australian Resources Research Centre and National Geosequestration Laboratory.
Xiangyu Wang
Professor, Woodside Chair, School of Built Environment
Curtin University
Prof. Xiangyu Wang holds the position of Curtin-Woodside Chair Professor for Oil, Gas & LNG Construction and Project Management, and is the Co-Director of the Australasian Joint Research Centre for Building Information Modelling (BIM). Professor Wang is an internationally recognised leading researcher in the field of Construction IT, BIM, Lean, Visualisation Technologies, Project Management, and Training, having obtained over AUD $5 million in research funds and published over 300 peer-reviewed technical papers. He is the Chair of the Australian National Committee of the International Society in Computing in Civil and Building Engineering. He has presented over 20 keynote speeches at international and industrial conferences on BIM, construction and project management, VR and AR research and practice. He is Editor-in-Chief of Visualization in Engineering which is an international research journal hosted by Springer-Verlag. His work with Woodside Energy Ltd. and other industries wins numerous awards including Runner-Up of the 2012 Curtin Commercial Innovation Award.
Fred Wehr
Director - Exploration and Development
Apache Energy
Emma Whitty
Vice President Information Technology
Clough
Emma is widely acclaimed within the IS industry as a fearless innovator. She is driven by the user experience and the current trend in consumerisation of technology means that she is riding the perfect storm.
Moving from Melbourne to Perth in 2013 Emma has taken on the newly created role of Vice President of Information Systems (CIO) at Clough Pty. She has catapulted the renowned Engineering Company on a journey of transformation that includes Infrastructure as a Service, the set-up of an innovation retainer, the launch of a mobile app platform, and the introduction of scholarships to help drive change.
Emma’s experience with Information Systems spans multiple industries and includes iconic organisations such as Kraft Foods, Cadbury as well as the Australian Department of Defence.
Craig Williams
Director
Geospatial Information & Technology Association
Craig Williams is a Director of the Geospatial Information Technology Association of Australia and New Zealand and Principal Account Manager with we-do-IT, an international geospatial services provider. Craig has decades of experience working in the energy industry in many countries including, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and North and South America. Craig has been involved in several successful software product start-up companies which delivered cost savings to mining and utility companies. Craig has degrees in Economics and Law.
Lesley Wyborn
Adjunct Fellow, National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Facility
Australian National University
Lesley Wyborn is an adjunct fellow at the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Facility at the Australian National University (ANU). After a career of 42 years in Geoscience Australia (GA), she has a strong background in developing relational database management systems and related analytics. Her focus in the last 25 years has been on developing real time interoperability between distributed data repositories. From 2010 she led the uptake of High Performance Computing (HPC) and High Performance Data (HPD) technologies in GA using what is currently the world’s 38th largest Supercomputer at the NCI Facility at ANU. Use cases that were transitioned for GA to HPC included satellite, potential field geophysics, and hazards modelling. She is a deputy chair of the Australian Academy of Science ‘Data for Science Committee' and internationally she is on the Executive Committee of the American Geophysical Union Earth and Space Science Informatics Group and is associated with the National Science Foundation Geoinformatics for Geochemistry and EarthCube Projects. In June 2014 she was awarded an Australian Government Public Service Medal for her sustained national and international leadership in integrated geoscience data management and analytics.
Speaking and sponsorship opportunities are still available!
Senior business transformation, technology and data executives from the leading E&P companies in the region will be attending the event to learn how to add value, reduce over-budget risk, improve performance and drive innovation in their organization.
Use this unique forum to demonstrate your value to the biggest players in the oil and gas sector. Present your company, showcase your leadership and demonstrate how you can help the oil and gas producers and explorers by speaking to this senior gathering of IT, technology and data professionals from upstream, downstream and midstream operations.
Speakers will assert themselves as leading suppliers and solution providers to the sector.
Download a sponsorship prospectus today to find out more about speaking opportunities at Smart E&P 2015.
For speaking, sponsorship and exhibition opportunities at SMART E&P 2015, please contact Oli Russell-Cowan today on +61 2 8188 7536 or olir@questevents.com.au to discuss a package that is right for you.