Gregg Boalch
ACS Fellow Member
FACS CP

Gregg Boalch has enjoyed a successful career in ICT and business transformation over 30 years in Australia, SE Asia and Europe. A consultant, mentor, enabler, guide and thinker, he spends his time lining up ducks, creating sandpits, starting conversations and planting trees. He is an active member of WAITTA, runs the Falls Valley Group and in his “spare” time he works with the homeless and plays guitar.

Barry Fitzgerald
Chief Executive Officer
Roy Hill Holdings Pty Ltd

Barry joined Hancock Prospecting and the Roy Hill Project in June 2010.  He was appointed Chief Executive Officer when Roy Hill Holdings Pty Ltd was established in May 2012. 

As CEO, Barry has been responsible for securing the world’s largest debt financing package – US$7.2billion – to complete the full funding package required to develop the Roy Hill project. His reputation for driving outcomes with the objective of delivering what is promised is reflected in the delivery of the first shipment of iron ore from Roy Hill on 10 December 2015 – ahead of schedule and on budget – and Practical Completion of the Project in May 2015. 

With a career spanning more than 30 years in the resources and engineering sectors – Barry is a well experienced leader able to meet the challenges associated with running a project like Roy Hill and leading the company as it ramps up operations to the 55Mtpa name plate capacity of the operation. 

Barry was previously CEO of CITIC Pacific Mining and has held various senior management positions with BHP Iron Ore, Henry Walker Eltin and Simon Engineering.   He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) and a Masters of Engineering Science from the University of WA, and a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Curtin University.

Pat Scally
Interim CIO
Department of Communities

During the initial transition phase from 1 July 2017 of the Machinery of Government changes, Pat Scally combined the IT infrastructure for three agencies and some functions from four other agencies, to support and accelerate business integration for the Department of Communities. Current work is to enable the Department of Communities move from transition to integration and transformation.

Pat has consolidated the contracts for IT-managed services, which will realise considerable savings to the Department over an 18 month period. Projects planned for beyond January 2020 are expected to decrease service desk and infrastructure operating costs by 20 per cent. The work of Pat and his team is integral to the Departments plan to integrate all source Agency business under the new Department of Communities, starting in the Kimberley using innovative technologies to support integration, staff co-location and mobility. 

Pat is a member of numerous government bodies, including the CIO Advisory Council; Cross Justice Information Committee; and the CIO steering groups from Police, Justice, Transport and Communities.

Pat is an early adopter of initiatives by the Government CIO such as GovNext and ServiceWA and was involved in the ServiceWA project revamp of www.wa.gov.au. 

Pat also collaborates with the Australian Computer Society and the Australian Information Industry Association, to further expand an intern program he initiated at the Department of Commerce. The intern program aims to develop a diverse cohort of IT officers in the public sector and provide opportunities for less-privileged people in our community to gain work experience whilst completing tertiary studies to enhance their employment prospects.

Josh Richards
Physicist, comedian and Mars One astronaut candidate

Short-listed as a candidate to Mars One’s 2031 mission to send humans one-way to Mars, Josh blends science, engineering and ethics with comedy to look at how colonising Mars will change humans in body, mind and soul. How will our bodies adapt to life in 38% gravity? How will having no hope of return to Earth affect the colonist’s minds? How will becoming a dual-planet species forever change how we see ourselves and our place in the universe?

Josh will follow his keynote with a Q&A session on all things Mars, and limited numbers of Josh's book will also be available for purchase & signing on the night. This event will be Hosted by MC, Charlie Gunningham, Commercialisation Adviser; Department of Industry, Innovation & Science.

ACS WA Gala Dinner 2018

Join physicist, comedian and Mars One astronaut candidate Josh Richards on a humorous and informative journey to the red planet inspired by his new book, Becoming Martian.

Register here.

Charlie Gunningham
Commercialisation Adviser
Department of Industry, Innovation & Science

As a Commercialisation Adviser on the ‘Accelerating Commercialisation’, Charlie provides commercial advice and matching grants of up to $1 million to innovative companies looking to commercialise their novel IP.

Originally from the UK, via Singapore, Charlie Gunningham landed in Perth in 1997 to do an MBA at UWA. Graduating as top student in 1999 he set up aussiehome.com, an online real estate business, running it for 10 years before selling to REIWA, whereupon he ran reiwa.com. He then moved to Business News to lead their digital transformation as GM of Digital, then as CEO.

Charlie is an active speaker, mentor and adviser among Perth's tech startup community, and sits on the advisory boards of TEDxPerth, WAITTA, WA Leaders, the Perth Symphony Orchestra, ECU School of Business & Law, Startup News, the Chief Scientist's STEM Panel and the Royal Perth Hospital Medical Research Fund marketing committee.

Sarab Singh
CEO
Illuminate Group

Sarab is an expert in connecting business strategy and human capital investment. He is a specialist in addressing enterprise specific challenges through personal growth strategies for leadership teams. Sarab is a Human Behaviourist with particular interest in areas of unconscious bias, conflict resolution, performance management, interpersonal communication including emotional intelligence, influence and persuasion skills.

In 2010, Sarab won the inaugural graduate scholarship at the Australian National University whilst undertaking his academic studies in the areas of leadership development and high performance teams. Sarab’s passion is to build leadership and management capability within his clients’ organisations to enhance employee engagement, retention and productivity.

Dudley Over
Snr Partner Sales Engineer
Splunk 

Dudley Over is a Senior Partner Sales Engineer at Splunk and has been with the organisation for 1 year. Dudley has a strong track record in presales consulting and management and has worked in a broad cross section of industry verticals. He is highly experienced working with large enterprises as well as with channel partners, resellers and distributors across the globe. Prior to joining Splunk, Dudley had a long career working with data centre technologies and business intelligence.

MACHINE LEARNING - THE NEXT BIG THING IN DATA 

presented by Phil Wild, SPLUNK

Register here.

Machine learning has the potential to radically transform our daily lives. Whether you are trying to predict how likely someone is to purchase a product, or determine when a cellular network will go down, machine learning can deliver predictive analytics based on the patterns seen in machine data.

Sue Webb
Principal Practitioner
DDLS

Sue Webb is the Principal Practitioner for Business Analysis for DDLS Australia. Sue believes that enterprises thrive when they have passionate staff that have the skills and drive to help move a business towards its vision. Sue’s two greatest passions are from opposites sides of the IT triangle – process and technology, and yet they are very closely related to each other.

They are Business Analysis and Business Intelligence… Having extensive experience and many years of educating others on these subjects, as well as project management, IT Service Management and SharePoint, gives Sue a unique perspective on IT.  It allows her to see IT for the business benefits it delivers, and the business problems that it solves.


DDLS MASTERCLASS - ART VS. SCIENCE

The Art of Business Analysis vs. the Science of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, presented by Sue Webb Principal Practitioner for Business Analysis for DDLS Australia.

Register here.

Data Science has been called the sexy profession by Harvard Business Review, and is one of the fastest growing, most sought after professions.  Data Science is advancing through the rapid adoption of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in everything from mobile phones to large Line-of-Business applications.  Business Analysis (BA) on the other hand has seen more modest growth and is often seen as more of an art than a science. Are these two professions so different? Are Business Analysts really going to be pushed out in favour of Data Scientists?

Louise Smith
Director Workforce Development and Planning
ACS

Luoise Smith is the Director for Workforce Development and Planning at ACS and is a business capability specialist with over 15+ years experience consulting to individual business and governments on the skill needs within their organisation, undertaking training needs analysis and workforce development strategy development and planning to address current and future skills requirements.

This includes whole of sector approaches through her senior management roles for both HR, vocational education and training sectors and member-based professional associations.
 

PUZZLE OUT SFIA MASTERCLASS
Held prior to the ACS WA State Conference 2018 and presented by Louise Smith, ACS Director Workforce Development & Planning

Register here.

Staff retention and staff development are vital to the success of ICT organisations – especially in the current environment of rapid technological change. Assuring the pipeline of future ICT human capital is critical, and there are clear indicators pointing to future skills needs capability. Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) affords a broad range of business benefits achieved through the use off a consistent definition of professional ICT skills.

Matthew O'Leary
Senior Associate
Herbert Smith Freehills

Matthew is one of the leading IT and technology lawyers in Western Australia. He has particular expertise in relation to high-value, complex and strategic technology, IT, IP, procurement and outsourcing projects.

Matthew has been the lead legal advisor on many recent high-profile autonomous technology projects, including advising RACWA on its procurement and trial of Australia’s first driverless bus, BHP on its Rail Automation Project and Hitachi Construction Machinery, Arc Infrastructure and BHP on other similar projects. He was also the lead legal advisor to the State Government on its $3 billion GovNext-ICT Project – Western Australia’s highest-ever value IT project.

Anna Sawyer
Road Safety & Member Manager
RAC

Anna Sawyer is an experienced  public policy professional having worked in both Government and non-government organisations, including the Corruption and Crime Commission and the Department of the Attorney General.

She has a Bachelor of Social Sciences with a double major in International Relations and History as well as a Master of Arts in Professional and Applied Ethics from the Australian National University. With a keen research interest in the ethics of advanced technologies, Anna is currently completing her PhD on the topic of Robot Ethics within the School of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia.   

She is currently the Manager of Road Safety at RAC within the Advocacy and Members Division and is the Project Manager of RAC’s Automated Vehicle Trial.

Thomas Bräunl
Professor at The University of Western Australia

Thomas Bräunl is Professor at The University of Western Australia, Perth, where he directs the Renewable Energy Vehicle Project (REV) as well as the Robotics&Automation Lab. He has converted several road-licensed cars to battery-electric drive and autonomous driving and operates one of Australia’s largest EV charging network with 24 AC and DC charging stations.

He was Technical Director of the West Australian Electric Vehicle Trial and Principal Investigator of the ARC Electric Vehicle Fast-Recharging Project. He has worked on Driver-Assistance Systems with Daimler/Mercedes-Benz and on Electric Vehicle Charging Systems with BMW. Professor Bräunl holds a Diploma from Univ. Kaiserslautern, Germany, a M.S. from USC, Los Angeles, and a PhD and Habilitation from Univ. Stuttgart.

Marcel Wilson
Managing Director
Human Sparks

Marcel leads the Human Sparks consulting practice and has 17 years of industry experience and formal qualifications relating to digital transformation and change. Marcel has led large-scale complex change projects (up to 85,000 people) and has worked in various industries including, mining, EPCM, legal, education, agriculture, professional services, IT and not-for-profit. Marcel is an experienced workshop facilitator/presenter and expert in stakeholder management in complex organisational settings. Marcel is experienced in consulting on digital transformations, system reviews and working with leaders to achieve quality outcomes. In his role as Principal Consultant, Marcel leads Human Sparks consulting team and its Client engagements.

Qualifications: Bachelor of Arts (Comm Studies); Master of Business Leadership (MBL)

Certifications/memberships: COBIT; Australian Computer Society - ACS  (Senior Certified Member); International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP)

Jim Ellis
OAM, B.Sc (St Andrews), CF (Curtin), Hon D.Sc (Murdoch), FACS HLM
Chair of AASQA Advisory Board

Jim Ellis has worked in the information technology industry for over 50 years. Jim is a Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the ACS, He has been a national Vice President of the ACS, and Chair of the ACS WA Branch. He is currently Chair of the Advisory Board of the Autism Academy for Software Quality Assurance (AASQA) at Curtin University, which provides support for school and tertiary students in the area of software testing.

Jim was appointed an Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University in June 2006, and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to the ICT Industry in June 2008. He has a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Statistics from St Andrews University, Scotland.  

Professor Tele Tan
B.Eng, PhD
Director of AASQA

Tele Tan obtained his PhD degree in Electronics Engineering at Surrey University (UK) in 1993. He served as a Senior Member of Technical Staff at the DSO National Laboratories in Singapore before moving to research and then to academia in 2000. He is currently a Professor of Robotics at Curtin University and Director of the Autism Academy for Software Quality Assurance (AASQA). His research interests are in assistive technologies and rehabilitation engineering, using them to solve health and societal challenges in our community.

Tele established a working group with key partners in education, industry and autism organisations to help create opportunities and to remove barriers for individuals on the Autism Spectrum to enter the IT job market. This has resulted in the development of programs that ensure continued and sustainable employment for IT graduates with autism.

COO, Founder
Bamboo

Nesh is an experienced founder and entrepreneur in China and Australia with successful trade sale exits in Organic N’ Easy, PaleoMealsDirect and Freeway Group. Nesh is an early cryptocurrency adopter, paying and trading bitcoin for accommodation and food in 2013 when travelling through Lithuania.

Jeff Andersen
Director
Office Information Australia

Mr Jeff Andersen - Director, Office Information Australia. Worked as Lead Consultant or Project Manager directly on some of the largest cloud-based document stores to be established in Asia Pacific. Responsible for deployment of leading-edge AI and workflow systems for professional firms in Australia and elsewhere.

Marcus Ashby
NEC
WA Sales Manager

Marcus has over 20 years of experience from roles in Europe and Australia including: Growing a start-up company through to acquisition. Sales Director KAZ Technology Services WA. General Manager Sales and Service Delivery WA Fujitsu, National Director of Business Development Fujitsu and WA State Manager Fujitsu.

Marcus is focused on the development and execution of the NEC growth strategy both within the newly awarded WA State Gov - GovNext program as well as business development in the Enterprise space and NEC’s channel community.

Colin Atkinson
BSc, CA, MACS, IT Specialist,
Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Colin Atkinson is one of the few Chartered Accountants who has been recognised as an IT Specialist by the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Colin has over 30 years of experience installing all the major SME business packages and can share the practical things you need to implement these essential strategies.

James Cottrill
Principal in charge of IT Audit & Risk Consulting/Internal Audit
Stantons International

James Cottrill is the Principal in charge of IT Audit & Risk Consulting/Internal Audit at Stantons International. He holds a degree in accounting, graduate computing and management diplomas as well as a Masters in technology management. He is a Senior Member of ACS, a Fellow of CPA Australia as well as a Chartered Accountant.

James has over 35 years of experience in accounting, information systems, IT and internal auditing. He provides IT audit, risk consulting and internal audit services to mainly the WA and NT state governments. He is also responsible for setting the strategic direction and managing the outsourced IT function at Stantons International.

George Coldham
ACS WA Vice-chair

George Coldham is an eternally curious, future thinking, ICT Educator. Training students in ICT Professionalism, Technology and Infrastructure he seeks to ensure his students are well prepared for their future careers, one which may involve job sharing with a robot or AI. George is a tech geek by nature and loves to read and learn about future technologies. 

Dr Louise Schaper

PhD FACHI CHIA

Chief Executive Officer, Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA): Australia’s Digital Health Community

As leader of Australia’s peak body for digital health, Dr Louise Schaper is a passionate advocate for the transformation of healthcare. Committed to the improvement of health outcomes enabled through innovative uses of technology and information, she has a global reputation in health informatics and digital health and is shaping a new future for HISA.

With a background as an occupational therapist, Louise has a PhD in technology acceptance among health professionals, is a graduate of Stanford’s Executive Leadership Program, a Certified Health Informatician and a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow.  Louise has delivered over 100 conference presentations, has written for academic and industry publications and text books, is host of the Dissecting Digital Health podcast and she is always online.

HISA STREAM

Working Towards Delivering Cohesive Integrated Digital Healthcare throughout WA presented by HISA (Health Informatics Society of Australia).

The 90 minute stream will comprise three 20 minute presentations, which will link together to give delegates a realistic and current overview of ‘digital transformation’ imperative for the Australian healthcare sector and how the opportunities and challenges require whole new ways of thinking, along with new skills and expertise form the professional services sectors.

These will be followed by a 30 minute ‘questions and answers’ session with a panel comprising the three presenters, co-ordinated by the session chair. Three high calibre speakers will give their respective perspectives on how their roles and current work is actively contributing towards the digital transformation of the Australian healthcare sector.

Register here.

Dr Felicity Hodder
IT Clinical and Operational Commissioning Lead
Perth Children’s Hospital

Felicity Hodder is a paediatric oncologist and passionate health digerati.  Her current role is the IT Clinical and Operational Commissioning Lead for Perth Children’s Hospital. Felicity grew up in Perth, attended medical school at UWA and moved to California in the 1980’s where she completed her paediatric and sub speciality training in Haematology and Oncology at University of Californian, Irvine.

Felicity practised at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County until 1995 when she was asked to build a Paediatric Oncology program for the Central Coast of California from Santa Barbara. She worked with clinicians and politicians to optimise the transition to managed care in California and was part of the team to implement the Eclipsys EMR for Cottage Health System in Santa Barbara.

Felicity moved back to Perth in 2005 and works today to reclaim her ability access information at the right time, in the right place to make the best decisions for her and her colleague’s patients in Western Australia!

HISA STREAM

Working Towards Delivering Cohesive Integrated Digital Healthcare throughout WA presented by HISA (Health Informatics Society of Australia).

The 90 minute stream will comprise three 20 minute presentations, which will link together to give delegates a realistic and current overview of ‘digital transformation’ imperative for the Australian healthcare sector and how the opportunities and challenges require whole new ways of thinking, along with new skills and expertise form the professional services sectors. These will be followed by a 30 minute ‘questions and answers’ session with a panel comprising the three presenters, co-ordinated by the session chair.

Three high calibre speakers will give their respective perspectives on how their roles and current work is actively contributing towards the digital transformation of the Australian healthcare sector.

Register here.

Joshua Sacks
Telehealth Coordinator
South Metropolitan Health Services

Josh currently manages the Telehealth Team at Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) and Fremantle Hospitals in Western Australia and is writing the Telehealth Strategic Plan for the South Metropolitan Health Service which has four hospitals within the group.  Josh’s Passion for technology and digital health led Josh to become a Certified Health Information of Australia (CHIA) member. CHIA is a unique credentialing program for health informatics.

This qualification combined with being a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia provides Josh with a unique skill set to understand and communicate across IT and financial/commercial areas.  Since starting as the Telehealth Coordinator at FSH telehealth appointments have increased from 60 to over 550 appointments per month, with 40 clinical services now utilising telehealth.

HISA STREAM

Working Towards Delivering Cohesive Integrated Digital Healthcare throughout WA presented by HISA (Health Informatics Society of Australia).

The 90 minute stream will comprise three 20 minute presentations, which will link together to give delegates a realistic and current overview of ‘digital transformation’ imperative for the Australian healthcare sector and how the opportunities and challenges require whole new ways of thinking, along with new skills and expertise form the professional services sectors.

These will be followed by a 30 minute ‘questions and answers’ session with a panel comprising the three presenters, co-ordinated by the session chair.

Three high calibre speakers will give their respective perspectives on how their roles and current work is actively contributing towards the digital transformation of the Australian healthcare sector.

Register here.

Erica Smyth
MSc; FTSE; FAICD
Non-Executive Director and Chairman at National Energy Resources Australia

Erica Smyth has 30 years experience in the mineral and petroleum industries, initially as a minerals exploration geologist and later in project management, government approvals, corporate affairs and community interactions. She has worked in the iron ore, gold, diamonds, mineral sands, uranium and oil & gas sectors.

Erica has now been a full time company director for 13 years. She is the Chair of the Ministerial Advisory Board for the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environment Management Authority (NOPSEMA), the Defence First Principles Oversight Board and the Industry Advisory Board for the ARC Centre for Mine Site Restoration.

She is also the Deputy Chair of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (WA) and has non-executive director roles at the National Energy Resources Australia Growth Centre (NERA), the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the Royal Flying Doctor Service National boards.

Erica is also the co-founder and Chair of the networking group Mega Data Cluster WA.

Shelley Kalms
Chief Digital Officer
Woodside

Shelley has more than 20 years’ experience working across multiple industries and has held a variety of roles in areas including Engineering, Strategy, Asset Management, Logistics, culture change and business leadership. Shelley joined Woodside in 2011 and is currently managing Woodside’s Data Science and IT as Chief Digital Officer.

Professor Andrew Rohl

FACS
Director, Curtin Institute for Computation

Professor Andrew Rohl is a leading expert in the application of computer simulation technologies in materials science. In 2004, he became the Executive Director of iVEC, developing a partnership across five institutions to provide major advanced computing facilities for all Western Australian researchers.

The success of this partnership saw iVEC being awarded  $80 million to build the Pawsey Centre at Technology Park. In 2012 he returned to Curtin and became the inaugural Director of the Curtin Institute for Computation. He was the WAITTA  Achiever of the Year in 2014 and became a Fellow of the ACS in 2017.

Charlie Gunningham
Commercialisation Adviser
Department of Industry, Innovation & Science

As a Commercialisation Adviser on the ‘Accelerating Commercialisation’, Charlie provides commercial advice and matching grants of up to $1 million to innovative companies looking to commercialise their novel IP.

Originally from the UK, via Singapore, Charlie Gunningham landed in Perth in 1997 to do an MBA at UWA. Graduating as top student in 1999 he set up aussiehome.com, an online real estate business, running it for 10 years before selling to REIWA, whereupon he ran reiwa.com. He then moved to Business News to lead their digital transformation as GM of Digital, then as CEO.

Charlie is an active speaker, mentor and adviser among Perth's tech startup community, and sits on the advisory boards of TEDxPerth, WAITTA, WA Leaders, the Perth Symphony Orchestra, ECU School of Business & Law, Startup News, the Chief Scientist's STEM Panel and the Royal Perth Hospital Medical Research Fund marketing committee.

Dr Ashley Aitken
Principal at Innovately,
CEO and Co-Founder at HEDventures

Dr Ashley Aitken is an entrepreneur, software developer, academic and professional trainer.  He has a PhD in Computer Science and Software Engineering from UNSW and has 25 years experience in IT.  He has delivered training courses around Australia, across SE Asia and in the US and UK.  He has won awards and recognition from the ICT industry, academia, the federal government, and the student community for the quality and excellence of his teaching and professional training.

He is currently the CEO and co-founder of HEDventures Pty Ltd, an edtech startup, and principal for Innovately.com.au, which provides services to assist with the application of Lean Startup and Customer Development principles and practices to the commercialisation of innovation in organisations from any sector, of any size, and at any level of maturity (including startups).  He graduated from the Founder Institute and Curtin Accelerate startup accelerators.