David Abramson
Director
Research Computing Centre, University of Queensland
David has been involved in computer architecture and high performance computing research since 1979.
He has held appointments at Griffith University, CSIRO, RMIT and Monash University.
Prior to joining UQ, he was the Director of the Monash e-Education Centre, Science Director of the Monash e-Research Centre, and a Professor of Computer Science in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash.
From 2007 to 2011 he was an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow.
David has expertise in High Performance Computing, distributed and parallel computing, computer architecture and software engineering.
He has produced in excess of 200 research publications, and some of his work has also been integrated in commercial products. One of these, Nimrod, has been used widely in research and academia globally, and is also available as a commercial product, called EnFuzion, from Axceleon.
His world-leading work in parallel debugging is sold and marketed by Cray Inc, one of the world's leading supercomputing vendors, as a product called ccdb.
David is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE), and the Australian Computer Society (ACS). He is currently a visiting Professor in the Oxford e-Research Centre at the University of Oxford.
Nalin A.G. Arachchilage
Lecturer
Australian Centre for Cyber Security
Dr Nalin Asanka Gamagedara Arachchilage currently works as a Lecturer in Cyber Security in the Australian Centre for Cyber Security (ACCS) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy). He holds a PhD in Usable Security entitled “Security Awareness of Computer Users: A Game Based Learning Approach” from Brunel University London, UK where he developed a game design framework to protect computer users against "phishing attacks”. He obtained a BSc (MIS) Hons from University College Dublin, National University of Ireland and has completed a master's degree, MSc in Information Management and Security at the University of Bedfordshire, UK. He is a Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP) at Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), USA and professional member of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Prior to undertaking his current position at UNSW Canberra, he worked as Research Fellow in Usable Security and Privacy in the Laboratory of Education and Research in Software Security Engineering (LERSSE) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada. Before moving to Vancouver, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Systems Security Engineering in the Cyber Security Centre, Department of Computer Science at Oxford University. He has also presented his research at Facebook Headquarters, Menlo Park, California, USA and collaborated with HP in a research capacity at the HP Lab, Bristol, UK. Nalin has been an invited speaker for conferences both nationally and internationally. He worked on a number of lecturing positions in Computer Science at Brunel University, University of Bedfordshire, Westminster University and Central Bedfordshire College in the UK. Before moving to UNSW Canberra, He briefly worked as Sessional Lecturer in Computer Science at Deakin University, Victoria University and Central Queensland University (CQUniversity) in Melbourne, Australia.
Apart from his academic career, Nalin also worked on a number of software engineering roles ranging from Programmer, Software Engineer to IT Manager.
David Bolton
Head of Engineering
WooliesX
David leads digital technology teams to get outstanding technology and business results now, and sustaining performance in the future. He particularly enjoys challenging existing organisational structures and practices towards building competitive digital players. David began programming at a young age, and moved straight from frequenting BBSs to trawling the web. He has a Bachelor of Science and an MBA. Professionally he has worked with everything from corporates such as News Corp, Telstra, Westfield, ING Direct, along with a bunch of unknown startups.
Edward Burnes
Global IT Director
Treasury Wine Estates
Ed is a passionate IT leader who is always striving to help businesses find value from their delivery model. He has over 20 years in the industry and has worked for a wide range of global companies, including a 10 year stint at Hewlett Packard.
In his current role at Treasury Wine Estates, Ed leads a global team responsible for the backbone of the IT environment. His team provides Infrastructure, Network and Technical Applications that drive the overall business. The team focuses on working with other IT groups to provide services that support all business functions. Their key objective is to provide simple, cost effective solutions that help our business to grow.
David Collien
Chief Technology Officer
Open Learning
In 2012, David joined CEO Adam Brimo and the world renowned UNSW Prof. Richard Buckland to found OpenLearning, together building a technology platform which challenges conventional educational practices to be more social, engaging, student-centred, and more in-tune with contemporary developments in social media technologies. At the time of its inception, David was pursuing PhD research at UNSW, where he was formerly an undergraduate in Computer Science, competitor in the international Robocup competition, a classroom teacher, researcher in the Adaptive E-Learning Research Group, and coordinator/head teacher of the UNSW Computing High-schools outreach programme.
David's PhD research into pedagogy, effective learning communities, motivational mechanics, and social dynamics within education technologies soon shifted into a full-time role as OpenLearning's CTO, as the company became the official MOOC platform for the Malaysian Ministry of Education - now running hundreds of university courses for hundreds of thousands of students across the region, with nearly a million enrolments worldwide. Outside of education technology, David still tinkers with robotics creatively, and has created robotic or electronic art installations for the Vienna Biennale, MOMA, and Sydney's VIVID festival.
Kris Croaker
DevOps Engineer
Safety Culture
Kris Croaker ran away from the hum drum of corporate IT politics and waterfall projects to jump headfirst into the adrenaline fuelled, seat of the pants rollercoaster of working for Australias best startup™ SafetyCulture.
Kris spends his time helping SafetyCulture development teams deliver product features faster and easier with his automation wizardry and continuous delivery prowess. He is driven by his passion to get quality features into customer hands as quickly as possible. His abilities to influence team success is heavily influenced by his training as a certified scrum master, as well as his experience herding his 4 children when they are out bushwalking on weekends.
Jodi Curtis
Corporate Infrastructure Program Manager
Uber (USA)
Jodi Curtis is an IT Program Manager at Uber, San Francisco and is responsible for managing the build out of scalable infrastructure globally for the 580 cities Uber operates in. She began her career in the tech industry with IT roles at Google, Ebay and Visa, Inc. before taking a slight detour to obtain her Masters in Psychology in 2008.
Jodi has spent the last 2 and a half years at Uber pioneering innovative ways to solve for scalability within a hyper-growth environment. From helping build a global corporate network backbone to leading a build project for a company-wide chat solution on a 4 month timeline, she has learned the ins and outs of helping Uber mature as a start-up. Perhaps most importantly, Jodi has partnered with the teams she works with to move quickly, accept and learn from failures, while engineering plan B’s with speed and agility.
Georg Friedrich
Head of Engineering
Redbubble
Georg's experience spans more than 15 years of software development roles in industries ranging from printing to online fundraising and e-commerce. In 2007 he co-founded betterplace.org, which quickly became Germany’s biggest online donation platform. He joined Redbubble in 2009 and helped to establish a lean delivery approach. He has continued to play a key role in its implementation as the team has undergone rapid growth.
Deborah Fuzy
Lead Research Analyst
Australia Post
Debbie Fuzy is the Lead Research Analyst for Australia Post within its Information Security Office. With a background in criminology, her interests and work revolve around looking at the human element of information security, especially in how people think and act in relation to perceived and real threats.
Ian Gibson
Chief Information Officer
SuperChoice and Finalist Finance CIO of the year
Ian Gibson is a Chairman and non-executive director but is mainly known as the Chief Information Officer for SuperChoice Services Pty Limited, the Australian market leader in cloud-based superannuation management and clearinghouse software, where he has been transforming the technology business.
He has also held several senior executive and CIO roles, co-founded a boutique consulting firm and worked with several technology start-ups.
Ian was a Partner in Accenture’s Strategy practice where he focused on business and IT-enabled strategy and organisational design.
Ian is a regular speaker and has appeared on Sky News. He has authored more than 50 publications; twice been nominated for Thought Leadership awards; in 2014 received 2 iAwards for technology innovation; in 2016 received an Architecture Award for Excellence and was also award Top 30 Global Business CIO; and more recently was a finalist for the iTnews CIO of the Year and shortlisted for 2 iAwards (winners yet to be announced).
Check out our interview with Ian on the future of IT infrastructure here
Rebecca Grant
Managing Director
iCourts
As a decision maker in a law firm, corporation or government agency, are you looking for assistance with processing electronic evidence or guidance simplifying complex data analysis?
Imagine a legal technology service provider offering expertise across the spectrum of ediscovery requirements, from data processing, management, analysis & hosting through to the presentation of electronic evidence.
As the founder and CEO of icourts, where our goal is to streamline the identification of relevant information from a variety of digital content pools, I have a specialty in the design and delivery of technology solutions for public inquiries and litigation, compliance and regulatory environments.
Over the last 17 years, I have delivered technology solutions for 25 Royal Commissions and state based Commissions of Inquiry across Australia and the UK, pioneering the deployment and evolution of electronic court rooms and the uptake of electronic evidence management.
As a long serving Board Member of the Victorian ICT for Women Network and their Ambassador for Mentoring, and elected as a BEC member of the ACS Victorian Branch for the 2017-2018 years; I work with these and various peak body committees in IT, tech diversity and the law promoting progressive approaches to diversity issues and contributing to the professional development of members.
Andrew Hatch
Devops Manager
SEEK
Andrew Hatch is currently the DevOps Manager at Seek, overseeing a team of 12 people whose functions range from being embedded in Product Delivery Streams with the goal of driving better DevOps practices in development and testing, perform Level 1 support duties, manage our rapidly growing usage of AWS and assist in the delivery of projects aimed at improving Seeks platforms and services
Prior to Seek Andrew worked as a consultant for a number of years delivering small through to large scale IT solutions in a number of roles spanning across Architecture, Development, Testing, IM and DevOps. Andrew has worked both in Australia and India and built his first continuous delivery pipeline in 2009. Since then Andrew gravitated more and more into DevOps focused roles, due in part to getting bored with Architecture and Development roles and being more interested in the unique challenges DevOps presented with changing traditional work and organisation practices to deliver better IT solutions. Andrew has a real passion for working in dynamic, innovative and challenging environments and building high-performing teams of talented and unique people and still enjoys getting his hands dirty with code
Currently a 17 year veteran of the IT industry, Andrew comes from the Mornington Peninsula in south-eastern Australia which is located in the state of Victoria. A unique part of the world renowned for its surf beaches, natural parks, wineries and wildlife. In between dividing his time between being a dad to 2 boisterous primary school age children he loves nothing more than surfing a few waves on the weekend, gardening and fiddling with old Datsun 510 cars
Martyn Hann
Chief Technology Officer
FreightExchange
As Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Martyn has been responsible for the designing and building of the FreightExchange digital marketplace. Martyn's approach to projects is to be involved from the earliest possible stage to ensure that proposals are technically feasible and they precisely capture customer requirements. By adopting this process, Martyn has witnessed first hand the impact automated and transparent freight processes can have on businesses in terms of increased productivity, reduced costs and sustainability.
Equipped with a degree in computer science, and over 17 years experience both locally and abroad in the supply chain and logistics industry, Martyn's expertise spans the entire development lifecycle from requirements analysis and architecture design, through to implementation.
Martyn is an active member of the startup and and entrepreneurial community and is passionate about developing elegant, easy to use solutions and sharing these benefits across the broader logistics industry.
Mitchell Hewes
Technical IT Security Officer
ANSTO
Craig Horne
Chairman
ACS Victoria
Craig is the Chairman of the Australian Computer Society (Victoria) and an Account Executive with Dialog Group, an Australian owned and operated large IT consultancy which specialises in custom software development, managed services for existing software and resource augmentation. He is a seasoned professional with over 25 years in the IT industry, 15 years of which were spent in technical roles spanning hardware, software, operating systems, databases, networks and peripherals.
Craig is currently studying a PhD part-time at UniMelb researching information security strategy in organisations. He holds a Bachelor of Science majoring in Computer Science from La Trobe University as well as a Master of Business Administration majoring in MIS and Entrepreneurship. He is proficient with vendor technologies such as Microsoft, CA Technologies, Cisco and various flavours of UNIX and keeps up to date by undertaking a minimum of 30 hours continuing education annually, as reflected in his Certified Professional status with the Australian Computer Society.
Sarah Hunter-Neale
Delivery Lead
REA Group
Abbas Kudrati
Chief Information Security Officer
KPMG Australia
Abbas has more than 15 years of experience with cross-functional sectors of cyber security, information security and information risk management, with skills in cyber security strategy, information security management, ethical hacking, cloud and BIG Data security, IT contingency planning, information system security auditing and compliance. Abbas is a Senior ICT Security Professional with valuable international-scale experience across government, Big 4 consulting, banking, financial, manufacturing, oil and gas, telecommunications and education sectors. He is well versed in IT standards and frameworks, such as COBIT, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, TOGAF and ITIL.
Katherine Maree Pace
Chief Executive Officer
Elanation
Katherine is the CEO and co-founder of ELANATION, an international award winning platform for play. Since its launch in Dec 2016, Elanation has won multiple national and international awards whilst its FREE Kids App has ranked in the Top 10 Apps for Kids (9-11years) on the Apple Store, Australia. Katherine has lived in Denmark for 5 years, previously working alongside the former creative director of Bang & Olufsen in Copenhagen. In Australia, Katherine has worked for PwC Australia, was selected as 1 of 50 national emerging leaders, has won International Samsung Design Awards and in her early university days was sponsored by Qantas Engineering.
Katerina Martianova
Commercial Manager for IT
realestate.com.au
Katerina is currently a Commercial Manager for IT at REA Group (realestate.com) where she has been working closely with global infrastructure and architecture team, and the rest of IT community to work out a way how finance and operations can work better together and pioneer ‘Fin-Ops’.
Morry Morgan
APAC Tech Correspondent
My Security Media
Morry Morgan is a true Asia-Pacific Industry 4.0 Futurist, having worked in all three technological spheres – Biological, Digital, and Physical. Formerly a medical scientist in Australia, Morry has worked across China and Singapore in the field of drones and autonomous vehicles. Most recently, he has been heading up business development for Australian Cyber Security Magazine, and has had his articles on the Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities published broadly in other IoT publications, as well as Business Insider.
Morry is also an experienced speaker, having delivered three TEDx presentations in Shanghai. His book, ‘Selling Big to China – Negotiation Principles for the World’s Largest Market’ also saw him ranked #14 Global Sales Guru in 2016.
John Murphy
DevOps Engineer
Redbubble
John is a true technical polyglot having tried his hands at everything from network engineering to server and storage management to cloud infrastructure and even found time to do some dabbling in software development. He currently works for www.redbubble.com where he evangelises good operational practices and techniques for improving code delivery.
Theresa Neate
Senior Quality Analyst
Real-estate.com
Theresa Neate is a career tester and test consultant who loves lean and agility and advocates for holistic system quality – and therefore all things DevOps. She has 2 decades of IT and non-IT testing and QA experience, coming recently from the ThoughtWorks consultancy stable, followed by a stint at Australia Post’s Digital Delivery Centre and is now working for digital media icon REA Group in Melbourne, Australia. REA are a global digital media company who want to change the way the world experiences property. Their leading brand is Australia’s largest online property audience, www.realestate.com.au.
Daniel Saffioti
Chief Information Officer
ANSTO
Daniel Saffioti is the current Chief Information and Digital Officer at the Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organisation leading the digital transformation agenda.
In addition to this, Daniel holds concurrent professional and academic appointments at Western Sydney University and Charles Sturt University. Prior this Daniel was an Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Wollongong (UOW) whilst being UOW’s Deputy Director in Information Technology responsible for infrastructure and academic computing.
To compliment his executive, professional and academic experiences, Daniel provides IT, advisory & management consultancy services to a number of organisations, ranging from startups, not for profits, registered training organisations, higher education organisations & multinational corporations.
Daniel is passionate about technology and the “magical powers” it has to help individuals and organisations grow and change for the better.
Nicholas Tan
Chief Infrastructure Architect
NewsCorp
Nicholas is currently the Chief Architect for Digital Infrastructure, Cloud and Cyber at News Corp Australia.
He is a passionate advocate of open and elastic software defined services to underpin the Digital Business agenda at scale. He is widely known as a leading Enterprise Technology Executive in Australia and has previously held senior strategy, execution and product engineering roles at KPMG, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and PwC Consulting.
Nicholas is also currently a member of the Megaport Advisory Council (megaport.org) with a key mission to foster community and drive initiatives that contribute to the future of the Open Internet.
Speaking opportunities are available
Present your company, showcase your leadership and demonstrate how you can bring value to Australia’s top organisations by speaking to this senior gathering of IT professionals from across all sectors.
Use this unique forum to demonstrate how you can optimise an organisation’s IT infrastructure by reducing costs, delivering speed and offering simplicity.
Speakers will assert themselves as leading suppliers and solution providers to the sector.
Contact Aleks Zids on +61(0)2 8188 7597 or email aleksz@questevents.com.au to find out how we can put you in front of a highly engaged and receptive audience.