Speakers

Dr Matthew Beard is a moral philosopher with a background in applied and military ethics. In 2018, he co-authored Ethical by Design: Principles for Good Technology and has spent the last two years focused on the ethics of technology. Matt has taught philosophy and ethics at university for several years, has consulted with some of Australia’s largest technology and data analytic companies, and has been extensively published in academic journals, book chapters and is a sought after speaker at both national and international conferences. In 2016, Matt won the Australasian Association of Philosophy prize for media engagement, recognising his “prolific contribution to public philosophy”. He is columnist with New Philosopher magazine and ABC Life, and a podcaster on the ABC’s Short & Curly program, an award-winning children’s ethics podcast.

Aubrey Blanche is The Mathpath (Math Nerd + Empath), Global Head of Equitable Design & Impact at Culture Amp, and a startup investor and advisor. Through all her work, she seeks to question, reimagine, and redesign the systems and practices that surround us to ensure that all people can access equitable opportunities and build a better world. Her work is undergirded by her training in social scientific methods and grounded in the fundamental dignity and value of every person.

Her professional expertise covers a broad range of equitable enterprise operations, from talent lifecycle programs and accessible product development to event design and communications & media. She is the inventor of the balanced teams approach to building proportional representation and a culture of belonging in the workplace, as well as the Balanced Teams Diversity Assessment in the Atlassian Team Playbook. She works to open source these methods for all practitioners and business leaders, and releases thought leadership and tools to create positive change at here at aubreyblanche.com.

She is an advisor to a variety of groups seeking to build a more just world, including Aleria Research and Joonko. Her work has been featured in Wired, the Wall Street Journal, the Australian Financial Review, USA Today, Re/Code, First Round Review, and more. She also has previous academic affiliations with Stanford and Northwestern, and an appointment at the Equity by Design Lab at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Despite the accolades listed here, she asks that you engage with her work to judge her competence: traditional proxies of merit and/or competence help reinforce the systems that keep incredible people from the opportunities they deserve.

Ellen Broad is a data policy wonk and data tinkerer, who moved back to Australia in September 2016 after working in London, the Hague and Paris. She’s currently working as a Senior Fellow with Professor Genevieve Bell’s 3A Institute, based within the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University.

Prior to joining 3AI, Ellen led the technical program within CSIRO’s Data61 developing API standards and software to support implementation of the Australian Government’s Consumer Data Right. She has also worked as an independent consultant for a range of organisations, including CSIRO’s Data61, federal and state government departments and universities.
Ellen writes about artificial intelligence, open data, data ethics and privacy in various places. She has been published in the Guardian, the New Scientist, Griffith Review, the Royal Statistical Society’s StatsLife, the Australian Centre for Ethics and a range of technology and policy publications. Ellen has also spoken about data issues for ABC Radio National, ABC News Breakfast, at SXSW and Australian writing and science festivals. She is the author of Made by Humans: The AI Condition (2018).

Ellen likes science fiction films, board games and pop music and incorporating these into data-related work wherever possible. She even co-designed a board game about open data with Jeni Tennison that’s been picked up in 19 countries.

Em Campbell-Pretty is one of the world’s most experienced SAFe practitioners and the author of two Amazon #1 best-selling books, Tribal Unity and The ART of Avoiding a Train Wreck. As one of the first SAFe Fellows and SPCTs, Em has been working with SAFe since before it was called SAFe. After reading Dean Leffingwell’s Scaling Software Agility in 2011 she launched Australia’s first SAFe Agile Release Train at Telstra in early 2012.

Kate Carruthers is Chief Data & Insights Officer for UNSW Sydney, and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science & Engineering. Kate has extensive experience in senior executive roles for diverse organisations such as GE, AMP, Westfield and State Government. She has also lectured in postgraduate business and accounting at Macquarie University and taught TAFE level courses in business and management. Kate is a Co-founder of several startups, is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers and is a member of the NSW Government Data Analytics Centre Advisory Board.

Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist and user experience designer from Portland, Oregon. She studies the interaction between humans and computers and how our relationship with information is changing the way cultures think, act, and understand their worlds.

She is the Co-founder and former CEO of Geoloqi, a location-based software company acquired by Esri in 2012 and the author of Calm Technology and Designing With Sound. Amber is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future. Named one of National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers, she’s been listed among Inc. Magazine’s 30 under 30 and featured among Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology.

Chris is Executive Director at the independent advocacy organisation, Responsible Technology Australia which is a non-partisan, independent advocacy organisation committed to ensuring a future where technology works for Australians. Through research and creative campaigning, RTA advocates for nuanced and considered evidence-driven policy that ensures the prosperity of Australians online as well as enabling an innovative and thriving technology business ecosystem.
Chris brings to RTA over a decade of experience in strategic communications and advocacy on campaigns across a range of issues and regions including digital rights, public health, poverty alleviation and climate change.

Through his early career in media production and international development, he found a deep interest in the role of culture and storytelling in shaping values, behaviours and systems, and how it can be leveraged to enable change and drive progress. He has a strong commitment to participatory methods and is driven by work that enables vulnerable and marginalised communities to self-advocate and design their own progress.

Lindley has had a long career in financial services. She has been the Group CEO of AFG Venture Group since 2009. She is also Chair of Xinja Bank, a Board member for National Bank of Vanuatu, Senior Fellow of FINSA and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She spent a decade of her career split between Macquarie Bank and Citibank, was inducted in the Telstra Australian Business Woman Hall of Fame in 2000, and is a passionate advocate for the power of good banking and financial inclusion to bring positive social change.

A recognised contributor and leader in the agile community in Australia and globally, Phil is constantly focusing on learning and growing, taking that experience to the Executive and Senior Leadership teams he works with as they embark on transforming their businesses for the digital age. Agile is about fostering nimble, adaptive organisations that respond to and initiate change. For more than 10 years Phil has been working to help organisations transform their business, free up their bureaucracy, and to achieve their business goals and create the ability to move.

Phil has led major programs of work building complex global systems executing with agile delivery models so has actually ‘done’ what he helps others to ‘do’. He also has an active interest in disruptive startups having founded two, and is now helping a group with an integrated, blockchain based concept.

Leanne Kemp is the Founder and CEO of Everledger. With a rich history in innovation, Leanne previously founded three Australian startups including Absoft Queensland, Fastcards, and the Great Australian Survey Company. Her entrepreneurial success has led to her appointment as the first female entrepreneur to hold the position of Queensland Chief Entrepreneur for Australia in October 2018, a role to further develop the startup ecosystem, attract investment, and support job creation. Leanne is an appointed member of the World Economic Forum’s Blockchain Council and a Co-chair for the World Trade Board’s Sustainable Trade Action Group and is on the IBM Blockchain Platform Board of Advisors. Her leadership role in technology has been recognised, winning awards including the 2018 Advance Australia Award, Innovator of the Year 2018 at the Women in IT Awards (London) as well as being named in UK Business Insider’s 26 Coolest Women in UK Tech 2016. Leanne was named Brummell Magazine’s Top 30 Female Innovators 2016 and is also an IBM Champion for 2018.

Dr Justine Lacey leads CSIRO’s Responsible Innovation Future Science Platform; a research program examining the interface between science, technology innovation and the associated ethical, social and legal consequences of new and disruptive science and technologies. CSIRO’s Future Science Platforms aim to develop the early stage science that underpins disruptive innovation and has the potential to reinvent and create new industries for Australia.

Prior to taking up this role, Justine led a research group of social and economic scientists developing and supporting adaptive solutions for Australian communities and industries. She is trained as a philosopher and her own research has focused on examining the aspects underpinning the minerals industry’s social licence to operate, and how this concept is used in other resource management contexts, such as forestry and agriculture.

Lachlan MacCalman has spent the last decade developing algorithms and software systems to solve real-world problems with machine learning (ML) for governments and industry. He now applies that experience working at Gradient Institute to advance the theory and practice of ethical ML.

Previously at NICTA and CSIRO’s Data61, Lachlan led teams of ML researchers, software engineers and domain experts to tackle large, interdisciplinary estimation problems requiring robust uncertainty quantification. Lachlan received his PhD in ML from the University of Sydney, after completing honours in theoretical physics at ANU.

Tony Ponton has been an IT Professional for over 20 years and an Agile – Lean Practitioner, Coach and Trainer since 2002.
He specialises in coaching leaders, individuals and organisations in agility in order to build high performing organisations.
Tony has trained and coached for Australian and International enterprise companies as well as keynoting, presenting and training at world and local conferences.

He is Head of Business Advisory Queensland and Principal Consultant for Elabor8 and also co-chairs one of the worlds leading Agile Podcasts – The Agile Revolution.
Tony is part of the global Heart of Agile movement and serves as a Heart of Agile Method Guide

Sek-loong Tan joined Boston Consulting Group in 2007 in the London office and has subsequently been based in BCG’s Melbourne, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, and Canberra offices. Sek focuses on the public sector, and works with government leaders to design and deliver on ambitious reforms. He has deep expertise in data and digital transformation, innovations in service delivery, agile at scale, and organizational effectiveness. He has worked with governments across Europe, Asia, and Australia, and in particular in social and human services, industry and trade, and economy and skills.

Sek previously advised companies in a range of private sector industries including consumer goods and retail; financial services; and technology, media, and telecom. Before joining the firm, Sek was a co-founder and Director of Operations and Strategy at Teach for Australia, and senior advisor to the CEO of Asialink in Australia, where he helped establish Asialink Business.

Julian Thomas is Director of the Social Change research platform, and Professor of Media and Communications at RMIT. He works on new communications technologies and public policy – current interests include social aspects of cryptography, trust, AI, and inclusion. Recent publications include Internet on the Outstation: The Digital Divide and Remote Aboriginal Communities (INC, 2016), Measuring the Digital Divide: The Australian Digital Inclusion Index (2016 and 2017), The Informal Media Economy (Polity, 2015), and Fashioning Intellectual Property (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Professor Jon Whittle is the Dean of the Faculty of IT at Monash University. He is a world-renowned expert in software engineering and human-computer interaction (HCI), with a particular interest in IT for social good. In software engineering, his work has focused around model-driven development (MDD) and, in particular, studies on industrial adoption of MDD. In HCI, he is interested in ways to develop software systems that embed social values. Jon’s work is highly interdisciplinary. As an example, he previously led a large multidisciplinary project with ten academic disciplines looking at how innovative digital technologies can support social change.

Before joining Monash, Jon was Head of the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University, where he led eight multi-institution, multi-disciplinary research projects. These projects focused on the role of IT in society, and included digital health projects, sustainability projects and projects in digital civics. Jon is well-known in the software engineering research community and will co-chair the major conference in the field (International Conference on Software Engineering) in 2019. When in the UK, he was a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Awardee – this is a prestigious award given to outstanding and respected scientists in the UK. Prof. Whittle is an experienced research leader, having been the Principal Investigator of projects totaling over £8M in recent years.