David Barrett
David is a Local Government management professional with strengths in arts, business and marketing. David has led commercial change within traditionally community focussed business units delivering increased revenue, productivity and efficiency whilst enhancing community outcomes. David’s formal training is Bachelor of Laws and Legal Practice and Bachelor of Commerce but it didn’t take long for him to see the light and pursue a career in an area that he is passionate about – Local Government. During his Local Government career, David has worked as Advisor, Performing Arts for the City of Tea Tree Gully; Unit Manager, Cultural Facilities for the City of Marion; Executive Director for The Art House Wyong; and is now Manager Business Enterprises and Communications for the Town of Gawler.
David Carroll
Working for Adelaide City Council, David is charged with strategically investing in the technology and related infrastructure that is to deliver on the City’s Strategic Plan 2020. Technology and infrastructure are fundamental cornerstones in driving Adelaide to become one of the world’s leading Smart Cities. He has an insatiable passion for technology and ICT Infrastructure being done right the first time, working to ensure it delivers not only the business benefits, but also is as agile as possible whilst still performing well into the future returning benefits far beyond its original purpose. The KISS principle, systems architecture and solution design – built for now and into the future are key underlying themes in his success.
Dianne Colls
Di has been Team Leader Information Management at the City of West Torrens for over 10 years. Di’s aim is to improve the way in which we capture records and provide a more consistent approach to managing information. The transition to Objective ECM is a challenging but exciting project that will provide a more seamless and consistent approach to managing records across Council.
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Dr John Flackett
Dr. John Flackett is a speaker, educator, advisor and business founder. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is John’s passion, and has been an integral part of his career via teaching, research, industry and education. A leader in his field, John has 20+ years of AI experience and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence (machine learning and natural language processing). Previously a senior academic teaching Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering and Computer Studies at a UK university, John has also worked in a wide range of industries and sectors (including retail, banking, government and engineering). Since migrating to Australia from the UK, John has co-founded two businesses; the smart web company koolth and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (ailab.com.au). AiLab assists industry, academia, government and community across the globe with learning and navigating AI through education programs, research, resources, policy and events. A renown international speaker, John runs workshops and presents at events around the world speaking about AI, future jobs and emerging technology. As an AI advisor, John frequently contributes to media interviews, radio discussions, publications and roundtables. His academic and business career was featured in the 2019 Million Plus ‘Think Modern’ campaign launched at the Palace of Westminster (UK). John’s fortunate to have picked up awards throughout his career, including from the British Computer Society (BCS) and GovHack. He is also co-founder of the Adelaide Artificial Intelligence meetup series, which is the largest AI networking community in South Australia. Passionate about AI and his craft, John is dedicated to mentoring, collaborating, educating and building AI awareness.
Kimberley Smyth
Kim is an experienced Program and Project Manager in the technology space. Her program and project management skills coupled with extensive consulting, advisory, mentoring and people management experience enables consistent translation of an organisation or clients’ requirements and needs into workable solutions, whilst maintaining great momentum and program and project controls across the project delivery lifecycle. Kim builds and maintains excellent client, stakeholder and vendor relationships, ensuring a personalised and collaborative approach to project delivery, client support, consulting, advisory, vendor and stakeholder management. Her experience varies across a number of project methodologies including Prince 2, PMBOK, Agile and Waterfall. Kim has experience in managing multiple complex projects in the IT space concurrently, from concept through design, build, test and delivery in both the public and private sector.
Lisa McAskill
Lisa is best known for her role as a presenter on Channel 9’s Postcards program, a role she enjoyed for 14 years. Lisa also appeared on Postcards Australia which aired nationally on the Win Network and internationally on the Discovery Channel. Lisa has had on camera crash courses in all manner of extreme sports. All in the name of a good story. Her enduring TV career includes more than 70 local, national and international TV commercials and numerous tourism, corporate and training documentaries. In 2011, Lisa established Lisa McAskill Presenting with a focus on the training of presenters and media mentoring. The business has evolved to include a production arm that includes writing, producing and directing online video content for individuals and businesses, social impact video content and TV commercials.
Matt Church
Matt Church is no ordinary presenter. He is the 2014/15 Australian Speaker of the Year and has recently been named one of the top ten motivational speakers in the world. As the founder of Thought Leaders Global, Matt’s greatest love is the development of thought leadership. It’s an obsession which connects him closely to some of the brightest and most brilliant minds in Australia, and across the world. His close connection with industry leaders spans a broad range of markets and activities, and as a chosen mentor to many of those leaders, he is in the unique position to have a deep insight into an enormous variety of topics, issues, markets, industries, and challenges. A prolific author, his publishing history is a demonstration of his polymathic nature, and his ability to draw from this incredibly diverse sphere of knowledge means he can often shed new light on a topic which an industry has “done to death”. From this space, he inspires people to think, expertly delivering key messages and weaving them together with narratives from a diverse range of sources.
Michael Billett and Will Luker
The Office for Cyber Security in the Department of the Premier and Cabinet leads the South Australian Government’s approach to cyber security including setting whole of government strategic direction, policy and leading large-scale incident and emergency response. Will Luker and Michael Billett from the Office for Cyber Security’s, Cyber Resilience and Emergency Management team have broad range of skills, expertise and training across cyber security, emergency management and critical infrastructure protection. They have led whole of state incident and emergency response activities and run a range of cyber security exercises with current and former government ministers, senior government and private sector executives and government security managers.
Steph Jeuken
Steph is a senior consultant with OzTrain. She has worked in the field of ICT and Consulting for more than 20 years. She has been involved in the Dogs and Cats Online (DACO) project since she authored the first business case in 2015. Since that time, Steph has facilitated workshops with Local Government and key stakeholders to develop the DACO requirements specification that formulated part of the Request For Proposal documentation that went out to market. Steph has recently been engaged by the Dog and Cat Management Board to serve as the Project Manager for the DACO system development and implementation program. She will work with The Board, Local Government and the software vendor to deliver the DACO system in time for the 2018/19 registration period.
Sumen Rai
Sumen has spent over 15 years working at the intersection of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and social sciences. At the Defence Innovation Partnership , Sumen is responsible for engagement with industry, government and the research community, and strategic marketing and communications. Over the past seven years, Sumen has worked at Defence SA focusing on the development of defence science and technology activities across South Australia’s priority areas such as cybersecurity, maritime technology and autonomous systems. She also helped develop the state’s aim to grow opportunities in the space sector. As part of her work, Sumen has successfully fostered networks and communication channels between Defence, industry, universities and state and Commonwealth governments, and was responsible for securing funding from the South Australian Government for the establishment of the Defence Innovation Partnership. As a former teacher and presenter of STEM education programs, Sumen has particularly enjoyed her work on events such as the NASA International Space Apps Challenge and GovHack which have enabled her to continue her long-held passion for inspiring the next generation of South Australian scientists and researchers.
Warren Dean
Warren is passionate about all things data especially Business Intelligence. Whether he is leading the analytics function at the City of Casey, speaking at meetups/conferences or Power BI training at his startup DataTale, his goal is always the same, enabling people to make data-driven decisions through simple visualisations. Warren is a Certified Data Science Associate via Dell EMC and was part of the team awarded the Victorian I-Award for AI or Machine Learning innovation of the year in 2018. He also founded the Local Government BI Meetup in Victoria with attendees from over 30 councils.
Zoe Eather
Zoe is an engineer and a millennial with a passion for Smart Communities, Smart Cities and Smart Regions, so not just in the big cities, but using technology and Smart ways of thinking as enablers to make the places we live more accessible, liveable and sustainable for all. Zoe keeps up-to-date with the latest trends and shares her learnings through hosting The Smart Community Podcast and has recently returned from a Winston Churchill Fellowship researching Smart Mobility in 10 countries around the world. Zoe’s background includes civil construction, project management, environmental engineering and advanced and emerging transport technologies. Through her boutique consultancy My Smart Community, she offers Smart Community advisory services with a focus on Smart Mobility, Smart project management, Smart technology in regional communities, dealing with disruption and facilitating genuine collaboration.