The Riding the Digital Wave Summit: Speakers

Roger Allen AM

Roger Allen AM is a highly experienced entrepreneur and investor in early-stage growth companies in Australia and internationally. He built Computer Power Group (CPG) in the 1970s from a small start-up to a worldwide group of 3,000 people operating from 50 offices in 12 countries, listing on the ASX in 1987. In 1996 he co-founded Allen & Buckeridge, an early-stage venture capital fund with offices in Silicon Valley and Australia. He is dedicated to social entrepreneurship, especially to enterprises focused on indigenous economic development and digital health. Roger has served on two Prime Ministers’ Science and Technology Councils and Advisory Boards, and was Deputy Chairman of Austrade from 1990 to 1997. Currently an adjunct professor in the Business School of the University of Technology Sydney, he has also lectured occasionally at the School of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD. Roger has been awarded the top two lifetime awards in the IT industry (CSIRO Tony Benson award and the Pearcey Medal for lifetime achievement) as well as an Order of Australia Honour for his services to the IT sector through leadership roles, venture capital investment and professional development, and in recognition of his support of the indigenous community and philanthropic interests.

Director, School of Cybernetics and 3A Institute, ANU

Genevieve is best known for her work at the intersection of cultural practice and technological development. In September 2017, she established 3A Institute at ANU in collaboration with CSIRO’s Data61, with the mission of building a new branch of engineering to effectively and ethically manage the impact of artificial intelligence on humanity through better design and management of technology.

Genevieve is widely-published, holds many patents, and has an immense love of books.

Fang leads multidisciplinary teams of experts, together with whom she has won major scientific and industry awards on the national level. These include the Intelligent Transport Systems Australia National Award 2014, 2015 and 2018, the NSW iAwards 2017, the VIC iAwards 2019 and 2020, and the National Award and NSW “Research and Innovation Award” 2018 from the Australian Water Association.

In terms of personal recognition, Fang is the winner of the “Oscar” of Australian science – the Australian Museum Eureka Prize 2018 for Excellence in Data Science. She is the Australian Water Association’s “Water Professional of the Year”, awarded in 2016. She is the 2021 winner of the Australia and New Zealand “Women in AI” Award in Infrastructure, and a 2021 winner of the NSW Premier’s Prize of Science and Engineering.

Fang is a member of the inaugural NSW Government AI Advisory Committee. She also serves on the expert panel of the Singapore National Science Foundation, and on several boards, including ITS Australia. She has 300 publications and 30 patents in 8 countries. Currently, Fang is the Executive Director of Data Science at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the Executive Director of the UTS Data Science Institute.

CEO and Co-founder, Darwinium

Darwinium is the next evolution in digital risk, sitting at the intersection between fraud and abuse prevention. Unlike Charles Darwin’s legacy, Darwinium’s motto is ‘Survival of the Unfittest’; protecting those least able to protect themselves and ensuring everyone has access to the best defenses we can build.

Prior to Darwinium, Alisdair co-founded, built and scaled ThreatMetrix, the world’s leading Digital Identity company. As ThreatMetrix grew, it was protecting 1 in 3 ecommerce transactions in the US, and over 1 billion global accounts across 4 billion devices for the world’s largest global banks and brands. Alisdair created the Digital Identity category, grew recurring revenues from $0-100M USD resulting in a $830M USD acquisition by a FTSE 100 company. Alisdair then went on to manage the global fraud and identity organisation for the US, Canada, LATAM, APAC, UK and EMEA.

During the day, you will find him as an Associate Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Centre for Quantum Software and Information. His research interests include quantum estimation and control, and, in particular, the use of machine learning to solve statistical problems in quantum information science. He obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Institute of Quantum Computing and University of Waterloo (Canada) in 2012.

Gernot also teaches Advanced Operating Systems to a group of excellent students with a tendency to masochism. The course has, over the years, produced many Heroes of Operating Systems and has been copied at a number of universities. It also has its own prize for the best-performing student, the Advanced Operating Systems Prize.

In 2006, Gernot founded Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs) for commercialising L4 microkernel technology. He served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from 2006–2010 and as a Director from 2006 until OK’s acquisition by General Dynamics in August 2012.

Liz Jakubowski

Director – Digital, National Skills Commission

Liz Jakubowski is a digital leader experienced in building data platforms, managing stakeholder relations and communications. She has held senior executive and leadership roles across research and public agencies including CSIRO, NICTA, ABC & NSW Health and consulted with the private sector.

Over the last four years, Liz has led the development of the online platform, Ribit.net, which matches tertiary students with STEM or digital skills to entry level roles with innovative businesses. Ribit established a community of 40,000 students across every university and TAFE in Australia and 5000 of Australia’s leading employers. It was acquired by Stone & Chalk in 2020.

Heba Khamis

Co-founder & CEO, Contactile

Co-founder & CEO, Seer Data & Analytics

Kristi Mansfield is the Co-founder & CEO of Seer Data & Analytics. Kristi is an inspirational thought leader, published author and industry leader on the use of data for social benefit.

Kristi has served on several boards including the North Queensland Cowboys Community Foundation, The Stella Prize, the Australian Women Donors Network, SharingStories and the NSW Government’s Family and Community Services Advisory Board for Social Investment. In 2015, she was named one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review.

Ian has 27 years of experience in the ICT sector and has led organisations with over 300 people, delivering products and outcomes that have impacted hundreds of millions of people globally. He has held senior management roles in Europe and Australia as Director for Radio Access Performance at Nokia, Global Head of Sales Partnering (network software) at Nokia Siemens Networks, and Divisional Chief and Flagship Director at CSIRO.

Ian is regarded as a thought leader in the area of Digital Economy and is a regular speaker on “Big Data”, broadband enabled services, and the impact of technology on society. He has contributed to 6 books and co-authored more than 120 papers which have been cited over 3500 times.

Deputy Dean (Education) of the Faculty of Engineering, UNSW

Director of Sydney Business Insights, University of Sydney Business School

Dr Sandra Peter is the Director of Sydney Business Insights at the University of Sydney Business School. She contributes to research, public conversations, policy and critical thinking by working with leading experts in industry, government and community. Her research focuses on current understandings of the future, and how the future of emerging technologies, their social, ethical and political implications can be conceptualised in novel, more productive ways. Her new podcast series is The Unlearn Project. She also co-hosts one of Australia’s leading Business and Technology podcasts The Future, This Week and the Sydney Business Insights podcast series. She has published in MIS Quarterly, JAIS, JIT and EJIS and works on a wide range of educational research initiatives and programs, including work with UNESCO and the Department of Education. She has contributed thought pieces, op eds, interviews and research in the Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, The Australian and the ABC.

Professor of Information Technology and Organisation in the Discipline, Business Information Systems, University of Sydney Business School

Kai Riemer is Professor of Information Technology and Organisation in the Discipline of Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney Business School. Kai has extensive experience with industry-funded research and leads a Linkage project initiative on the Management of Disruptive Workplace Technologies, sponsored by the Australian Research Council. He is the Founder and leader of the Digital Futures Research Group and convener of DISRUPT.SYDNEYTM. His expertise spans the fields of digital commerce, collaborative systems, the future of work, technology adoption, and the philosophy of technology. Kai is frequently requested to comment, speak and consult on issues around digital disruption, the future of business and social media. Kai co-hosts The Future, This Week, Australia’s leading podcast on the future of business and technology, and most recently, The Unlearn Project, the podcast about changing common sense.

Flora Salim’s research is in the cross-cutting areas of data science and ubiquitous computing, particularly on human behaviour modelling, mobility data science, machine learning with multimodal time-series and spatio-temporal data, and AI on the edge (IoT, sensors, wearables, digital systems and infrastructures). She has received more than $10M in research funding in the last 10 years. Her research has been funded by ARC, Microsoft Research, Northrop Grumman Corporation US, Rheinmetall Defence Australia, Qatar National Priorities Research Program, IBM Research, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bayer Foundation, and many industry and government partners. Her research has led to more than 150 research publications and 3 patents.

She was a Humboldt-Bayer Fellow, Humboldt Fellow (experienced researcher), Victoria Fellow, and was the recipient of the RMIT Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence–Early Career Researcher 2016; the RMIT Award for Research Impact – Technology 2018; Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Research Industry (APDI) Fellowship (2012-2015), and IBM Smarter Planet Industry Skills Innovation Award (2010). She obtained her PhD in Computer Science from Monash University in 2009.

She is currently an advisory board member for Charles Sturt University’s Cyber & Data Science Research Institute, Editor for Cyber and AI at IdeasSpies.com and a judge for Fintech Australia.

Daniella has regularly contributed and published articles in cyber security, strategy and innovation.

For the past 3 years, Daniella was a finalist for the AWSN Security Champion Award and prior to that was a member of the CSIRO Data61’s multi-award winning team (national and state) iAwards for cyber product innovation.

Jon was named CEO Magazine’s 2019 Education Executive of the Year. Prior to joining Data61, he was Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University and is a former Technical Area Lead at NASA, where he worked on software for NASA space missions.

Jon is passionate about the role digital technologies can play in society. He has a world-leading reputation on how to adapt software development methods to fully take into account human values and ethics, so that we build software for a society we want, rather than one we get by accident.