Presenters
Graham Bell
Co-founder & CEO, NextAero
Graham Bell is a Co-founder and CEO of NextAero. He has a bachelor of aerospace engineering from RMIT University and is currently studying to obtain a PhD in jet aeroacoustics at Monash University. He was recently an entrepreneurial fellow at The Generator - an accelerator program also at Monash. In 2017, he was project lead on the world’s first 3D printed aerospike rocket engine - designed, built, and tested inside 6 months. He also enjoys science education and has presented at National Science Week amongst others. He has an international focus and has spent time at Ohio State University, lived in Switzerland, and speaks German.
Colin Bonner
Founder & Technical Director, Fulcrum3D
Colin Bonner is responsible for the engineering, research, new product development and commercialisation of our state-of-the-art technologies and inventions such as CloudCAM™, SodarF3D™ and DataVOLT™. His knowledge and expertise is well-recognised and sought out by both government and private sectors worldwide.
Tim Cannon
CEO, Livestock Labs
Tim Cannon is an American software developer, entrepreneur, and biohacker based in Australia. He founded and led the biohacker group Grindhouse Wetware and currently serves as CEO of Livestock Labs, a biotechnology startup company that creates implantable technology for cattle and other animals. Tim has had a variety of body modification implants, and has been referred to in the media as a cyborg. Tim has spoken on subjects including technological ethics, sensory substitution, and citizen science.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks
Co-founder & CEO, Neighbourlytics
Jessica Christiansen-Franks is an urban designer and social entrepreneur who has dedicated her career to understanding the social dynamics of urbanisation.
Passionate about creating neighbourhoods people love and feel connected to, Jessica has become a thought leader in innovative citizen participation and inspiring active citizenship. Jessica was previously CEO of CoDesign Studio, a social enterprise working to empower local citizens to shape their neighbourhoods.
As co-founder of Neighbourlytics, Jessica has side-stepped into the world of big data to build a data platform which tracks the unique local identity of neighbourhoods.
William Crowe
CEO, High Earth Orbit Robotics
William Crowe has submitted a PhD in Aerospace Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. His research focus was on the use of swarms of spacecraft to characterise asteroids during flyby. In 2015, William won the Global Space Generation Advisory Council “Move an Asteroid” scholarship for his work on using small spacecraft in Earth orbit to intercept asteroids as they pass through the Earth/Moon system. He has since co-founded High Earth Orbit Robotics, with a long-term vision to prospect and utilise asteroid resources and an immediate goal of using the same technology to inspect and resolve anomalies on satellites in geostationary orbit.
Michael De Nil
Co-founder & Co-CEO, Morse Micro
Michael De Nil is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Morse Micro – a Sydney-based fabless semiconductor startup reinventing Wi-Fi for the Internet of Things. Michael holds a Masters degree from the University of Eindhoven and has over 10 years’ experience building low power wireless chips. Before starting Morse Micro, Michael was a Principal IC Design Engineer at Broadcom where he developed the Wi-Fi chips that are found in most modern smartphones today.
Katrina Donaghy
Co-founder & Co-CEO, Civic Ledger
From her early years as a sociologist through to her interest in entrepreneurialism, Katrina Donaghy has extensive experience in public policy and early stage commercialisation. For more than 20 years, Katrina has worked in both public and not-for-profit sectors, focusing specifically on business development, project delivery and revenue diversification with a view to build resilient and sustainable organisations.
David Finlay
Founder, Moisture Planting Technologies
David Finlay was raised on farming properties in the far west of NSW. He has a deep appreciation of the risks involved in farming in our constantly changing conditions. Dave is a toolmaker by trade and together with his wife Wendy, a Mechanical Engineer, they have owned and operated the engineering and design firm Trang Imagineering for the last 15 years. He has proven experience designing products for Agriculture, Refrigeration and Mining, and always strives for break-through innovation. Moisture Planting Technologies is a result of designing agricultural equipment and realising no-one was addressing the core issue of planting into variable soil conditions.
Jordan Gruber
Founder & CEO, Frontier Microscopy
Jordan Gruber is a Mechatronic Engineer, Founder/CEO of Frontier Microscopy, and Channel 9 South Australian Young Achiever of the Year for 2018. As CEO of Frontier Microscopy, Jordan is passionate about applying his expertise to improve laboratory efficiency, accelerate scientific discovery, and to ultimately save lives.
Kath Hamilton
Founder, loop+
Kath Hamilton has 15+ years' experience as a digital executive leading product, engineering, business development and marketing. Her extensive experience with blue-chip corporates such as Yahoo!7, News Corp, Telstra and Westfield now combines with her passion to build products that can radically improve the lives of others. loop+ was conceived to support the functional recovery of her nephew who sustained a spinal cord injury at birth.
Mladen Jovanovic
Co-founder & COO, Bindimaps
Mladen Jovanovic is passionate about adding value and solving some of the world's biggest problems – in the case of BindiMaps, Mladen is helping to restore a sense of independence to people with vision impairment by allowing them to navigate freely and to seamlessly integrate into modern society. Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, Mladen has won first place at the IBISWorld Innovation competition, competed as finalist at the UTS MBAe Venture Day competition, won first place at the Startup World Cup for the ICT category and was a finalist at the LAUNCH competition. Mladen is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder at BindiMaps.
Richard Kimber
Co-founder & CEO, Daisee
Daisee is led by CEO and Co-founder Richard Kimber, who brings significant experience in technology and financial services from CEO and executive roles at OFX Group, Google, ANZ Bank, and as chairman of technology at startup Unlockd. Kimber started Daisee with a mission to bring together the best and brightest talent in Australia to help unlock the benefits of AI for local businesses.
Patrick Matweew
Managing Director, Redback Technologies
Driven by the idea of a greener future through technology, Patrick Matweew is responsible to scale the Redback Technologies through operational excellence and forming and growing partnerships. Being involved in renewables and in residential solar in particular continuously since 2005, Patrick is an industry veteran and experienced executive. He holds a Masters Degree in Business and has worked in different roles in Germany, China, Singapore and Australia before joining Redback.
Bob McKay
Co-founder, AgriDigital
Bob McKay is a well-known grain industry and agribusiness leader and innovator. He has designed and developed multiple commodity contracting and management systems and has a passion for technology and leading industry best practice in this space.
Bob grew up on his family farm in Warren, NSW where he managed the family partnership’s wool and livestock enterprises before, in 1992, founding Agfarm, a grain agency for the Australian Wheat Board and a cotton agency for Colly Cotton.
The success of Agfarm saw him recruited in 2000 to the privatised Australian Wheat Board as General Manager of AWB (Australia) – AWB’s domestic trading and non-wheat grains export division and later appointed to the role of General Manager, Grower Services overseeing 40+ offices across Australia’s grainbelt.
In 2004, Bob returned to Agfarm seeing an opportunity to expand the business to create Australia’s first national grain broker. In 2008, Bob, alongside Emma, also founded and established what is now known as Clear Grain – Australia’s first online grain exchange and clearing house – later sold to the New Zealand Stock Exchange. Agfarm was later sold to listed agribusiness group Ruralco and US-based grain grower cooperative CHS Inc.
At AgriDigital, Bob draws on his proven leadership and visionary skills as well as his in-depth technical agribusiness knowledge and strong networks across the agriculture, finance and technology industries to drive product innovation.
Eric Peck
CEO, Swoop Aero
Simon Raik-Allen
CTO, The Big Crunch
Simon Raik-Allen is an all-round hands-on technology professional who bridges business strategy, product design and software engineering. After 8 years of researching Artificial Intelligence at Monash University he started his professional career in San Francisco working for dotcom startups.
He next served as CTO and accidental Futurist of MYOB for 7 years, helping to steer the company from the desktop to the cloud, and then through an IPO.
Most recently Simon has founded his own startup, The Big Crunch, a pioneering new data sharing platform. Along the way he has worked with companies such as Sony, eBay, Bank of America, ANZ, Telstra and AOL.
Julio Ribeiro
CEO, Inventia Life Science
Dr Julio Ribeiro completed a PhD in Medicine in 1998 at UNSW and subsequently worked with Sigma-Aldrich, eventually holding several senior executive roles. His experience in the development and sale of innovative scientific products, combined with an entrepreneurial spirit, led Julio to form Inventia Pty Ltd in 2006.
Through Inventia, Julio has established two highly innovative businesses. Inventia Genetic Technologies operates the most advanced bovine in vitro fertilisation (IVF) business in Australia. Inventia Life Science has developed a market-leading 3D bioprinting platform for biomedical research and regenerative medicine – it has attracted over $10m in grants and venture capital investment and is growing rapidly.
Mallika Robinson
Co-founder & Chief Science Officer, QuestaGame
Mallika Robinson has 20 years of entrepreneurship experience in building large internet communities. She's won numerous awards (Eureka Prize for Innovation in Citizen Science, 2018; Finalist, UNSW Entrepreneur of the Year, 2017; Innovation Connect Grant, 2015) and has co-authored patents in the field of information retrieval. She holds a doctorate in Information Systems (Design of Mass Participation Systems) and is a Co-founder of QuestaGame.
Originally from India, Mallika understands first-hand the anthropomorphic pressures on our planet and the urgent need for addressing these pressures using solutions grounded in economics. She currently resides with her family and two cats in Canberra, Australia.
Kristofer Rogers
CEO, Split Payments
Kristofer Rogers is an award-winning entrepreneur with a passion for digital transformation. Prior to joining Split Payments, Kristofer launched two of the region’s most successful peer-to-peer crowdfunding platforms, including GoFundraise in Australia and SimplyGiving.com - Asia’s largest online giving community operating in 20 countries, including Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Having raised more than US$100 million for nonprofits and social enterprises across the globe, Kristofer was the 2014 Regional Winner for Community Impact in Southeast Asia @ Talent Unleashed, an international accolade judged by Sir Richard Branson and Steve Wozniak.
Roman Teslyuk
CEO & Founder, Earth AI
Roman Teslyuk is the CEO of EARTH AI, the first ever AI platform for mineral exploration. Roman obtained MSc in Geology from Lviv University in Ukraine. He has worked as an exploration geologist and geophysicist across Europe, Middle and Far East. He came to Australia to do a PhD in Geosciences at the University of Sydney. In late 2016, he founded EARTH AI to tackle big data problems in geosciences and increase mineral exploration success rates.
Spiro Rokos
Co-founder & CTO, Slyp
As an early team member of PayPal Australia, few have the fintech expertise of Spiro Rokos. At PayPal Spiro lead the technology development team that drove PayPal’s market penetration in Australia. Spiro has a keen understanding of customer need and the evolution of the payments market.
Spiro’s passion is creating product that is not only user-centric, but takes account each of the players in an ecosystem so that it works for everybody.
Spiro’s passion is creating product that is not only user-centric, but takes account each of the players in an ecosystem so that it works for everybody.
Blake Wills
CEO, Microba
Blake Wills is a young entrepreneur who has worked in the finance, life sciences and education sectors. In these roles, he has launched and acquired multiple businesses in Australia and internationally. As CEO of Microba, Blake has made world leading technology available to Australian YES consumers, providing them with significant new insight into their gut microbiome. Bringing science to life and developing real world applications for technology is a passion for Blake.
Tom Young
Founder & CEO, udrew
After spending a lifetime within the building industry, specialising as a Geotechnical Analyst, Structural Draftsman and Systems Engineer and with a background in science and engineering, Tom Young taught himself coding and technology. He then built the original udrew beta system following almost a decade of research and development. Tom is driven by passion, curiosity and the desire to learn, and is usually up for a beer and a yarn when time permits.