Regional Innovation & Startups Conference

Les Delaforce is a Gumbaynggirr man and co-founder of Covocate, a digital HR platform and Dreamblocks which focusses on purpose over profit.

Having worked in a variety of senior roles in Government, in 2014 Les was awarded the Australian Institute of Management 30 Under 30 that recognises Australia’s top 30 managers.

Les has a passion for using tech as a mechanism to drive change and improve outcomes for a better work environment and community. In 2017 in recognition of this work Les was awarded Inside Small Business – Top 50 Business Leaders and recognised in the Westpac 200 Businesses of Tomorrow.

“Creative Beast + Mother of the worlds longest photographs + Soul Goal TechEd Startup..er + UX Designer = Artist.

PollyannaR is passionate about empowering people and regenerating places through art and activism she has found strength is in linking ideas, connecting people and facilitating community arts to grow in regional areas. She works as a facilitator, collaborator, mentor and leader to empower minorities, young entrepreneurs, and artists to achieve their wildest dreams.”

A local Gippslandian, Marc-O-Matic (a.k.a Marco Ryan) is an independent creative powerhouse and an all-in-one Multidisciplinary Artist, Animator, Storyteller and AR/VR Creative Technologist. His work pushes the boundaries of education and storytelling through harnessing immersive technologies.

Collaborating on one of the world’s first Augmented Reality Art books, Prosthetic Reality, Marco has since been pioneering and demonstrating his own unique and creative approaches to augmented and virtual reality and has consulted, directed, and created immersive storytelling experiences for organisations such as Telstra Labs, Melbourne City Council, Geelong City Council and many more.

James is the CEO and cofounder of Localised – a platform designed specifically to help local businesses connect and do business. Localised has recently partnered with the Latrobe Valley Authority and Gippsland’s 6 Local Councils to deliver Gippsland Business Connect. Through this initiative Localised is playing an important role in creating visibility of local suppliers, building supplier readiness and helping ensure more B2B spending stays in the local economy.

Chris Newman is a Director of ArcBlue, one of the Asia-Pacific Region’s fastest growing procurement consultancy, analytics, and training organisations. One of ArcBlue’s key areas of expertise and experience is in social procurement, where Chris has been a leader over the last decade. As a consultant and trainer, Chris has presented at State, National and International Conferences and worked with a range of public and private sector clients across Australia and New Zealand on social procurement development and training programs. In 2012, Chris co-developed the NSW Public Sector Social Procurement Guidelines, including Workshops across the State. In 2013, Chris co-founded Social Procurement Australasia, a not-for-profit membership organisation and community of practice that produce guidance and thought and practice leadership, and has developed and facilitated conferences and events across the region.

What emerging technology is inspiring you today? That is a question that Phillip and his team work on every day at DXC Technology. The team explore, develop and pilot emerging technologies for practical (and sometimes not so practical) business use cases.

Phillip is an Associate Chief Technologist at DXC Technology with a focus on digital strategy and innovation. Phillip’s role at DXC Technology is to help ensure the company is fully equipped with the knowledge to harness emerging digital technologies to lead its clients through a shift towards the digital future.

Phillip will discuss his role at DXC exploring, developing and piloting emerging technologies, and why this is important with the fast shifting of technology. He will also discuss some of the project DXC have been working on, specifically a voice controlled drone.

Rebel describes herself as a human agronomist and is a passionate advocate for rural women and their communities. From her office on the opalfields at Lightning Ridge, NSW Australia, Rebel has spent the past 17 years creating award-winning businesses and leading development in women’s empowerment, community, tourism, education, business and social, emotional and physical wellbeing in rural Australia.

Technology, micro-enterprise and intention are a powerful trio THE Rural Woman embraces to enable rural women to #livelocalgrowglobal and #bloomwheretheyareplanted. Rebel will speak about a new initiative called THE SEED Scheme that will see the development of 700 women-led online micro-enterprises in rural Australia in 2018.

David is the CEO of Infoxchange, a not-for-profit social enterprise with the vision of ‘technology for social justice’. He is passionate about creating a more digitally inclusive society and the role technology can play in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the not-for-profit sector. In addition to his role at Infoxchange, David is Chair of the Australian Digital Inclusion Alliance (ADIA) and a Board member of Specialisterne Australia working to create careers for people on the autism spectrum. He holds a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Queensland, a Certificate in Theology from Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program.

Jo Barraket is a leading researcher of social innovation in Australia. Her main areas of research are social enterprise and the social and political effects of online technologies. Jo leads the largest concentration of social innovation researchers in Australia and has authored more than 55 publications in her areas of expertise. With Prof Julian Thomas from RMIT, Jo co-leads the Australian Digital Inclusion Index in partnership with Telstra.

Dr Nicola F. Johnson is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Federation University Australia. Located in Gippsland, Victoria, Nicola researches peoples’ use (of all ages) of digital media for formal and informal learning and leisure, specifically those located in regional areas. Author of 2 books, 3 edited books and 27 journal articles, her third book is entitled, ‘Everyday Schooling in the Digital Age: High School, High Tech?’ (Routledge, 2018).

Julia is a jack of all trades events and operations at the hub for agtech startups, SproutX. Originally from Perth, her work in agriculture has spanned from geospatial mapping in the USA to policy improvement with the Victorian Farmers Federation. At SproutX, Julia is focused on fostering a community that energises entrepreneurs to solve agriculture’s biggest problems.

Eleanor Toulmin is CEO and co-founder of MimicTec, an AgTech startup looking at improving the productivity and animal welfare of poultry farming. Eleanor worked as a strategy and technology consultant at IBM and KPMG, as well as Director of Finance for The Oaktree Foundation. She returned to study in 2016 at the Wade Institute to pursue a Masters of Entrepreneurship, where she met co-founder and CTO Sarah Last, enabling her to pursue her passion about making a disproportionate difference to Australian farmers and livestock through entrepreneurship and innovation. Eleanor also serves on the board for the Foster Care Association of Victoria.

I have a passion for research and education in the control of infectious diseases in agricultural animals and this is largely driven by my background growing up in a rural setting on a sheep/cattle farm. Following on from a science degree at Monash University I completed a PhD investigating the control of parasitic worm infections in sheep. From 2014-2016 I worked at the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences at the University of Melbourne as a postdoctoral researcher in the area of drug discovery for parasitic diseases. As of 2017, I joined Federation University as a lecturer in Veterinary Biosciences and an active researcher in the area of worm control for agricultural/companion animals.

“With over 15 years experience in funding and grants, Jessie has worked with government, not-for-profits and businesses in a range of grant related capacities. As Founder & Managing Director of The Grants Hub, Jessie’s responsibilities include leadership and strategic direction, innovation, content management and partnership development.

When others see blockers, Jessie sees opportunities. She is a problem solver and solution seeker, who has merged grants with tech to tackle grant accessibility issues across Australia. From the way members find grants, to the way our team works remotely and receive a week’s volunteer leave and a social connection allowance (to connect with others through a club/shared office space etc.), Jessie leads the way in innovation.”

Jess leads Infoxchange’s social impact programs to ensure no-one is left behind in today’s digital world. With a formidable bunch of partners, Infoxchange are tackling the biggest social challenges through the smart and creative use of technology. Jess’ career has focused on building partnerships to support and scale innovative social justice projects with organisations such as CARE Australia, Amnesty International and UNICEF. She brings over 10 years of international experience, most recently from the Thomson Reuters Foundation in London where she was the Head of Global Programs.

Monica Green is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, Federation University Australia (Gippsland). Her teaching and research focuses on community- and place-based sustainability pedagogies in primary schools, and university-school partnerships as pedagogical frameworks. She has conducted extensive research in Victorian schools investigating sustainability curriculum and practice, including the impact of teaching and learning in diverse environments such as school grounds, food gardens and local settings.

Sarah Moran is co-founder and CEO of Girl Geek Academy, with a mission to teach 1 million women to get into tech and launch their own startups by 2025.

Bec is a technology enthusiast, a tinkerer and lifelong learner working at the intersection of government, startups, and technology. After completing her undergraduate degree in commerce, she left life as an accountant to pursue further studies in technology and development. Since then she has worked on a variety of different projects for enterprise clients as a technology consultant, mobile apps developer and developer evangelist in the fintech space. Most recently she was an adviser for the Victorian Minister for Innovation and the Digital Economy, advising on the innovation/startup sector, telecommunications infrastructure investment, and economic development in the ICT sector. She left the Minister’s office to pursue further opportunities to work with the innovation/startup sector by drawing on her broad range of experiences and insight.

Susan is an entrepreneur, company director and deeply committed to Australia’s innovation and diversity agendas. Susan is founding chairman of Scale Investors, a female focused angel investing network, is an angel investor, the co-inventor of two software systems and co-founder of a technology start-up company.

Susan is an experienced listed company director of more than 20 years with strong commercial and technical skills. She is Chair of Campus Living Villages, is the independent member of the Investment Committee for Industry Funds Management, chairs The Wheeler Centre, sits on the board of Melbourne Theatre Company and is on the executive committee of the 30% club in Australia. Prior appointments include Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, CNPR, Coffey International Ltd, Fusion Retail Brands, Transurban Group, Centro Properties Group (where she was a member of the board that achieved the successful restructure), Programmed Group, Just Group and MBF.

Susan co-founded The Big Issue in Australia, headed the Australian Commission for the Future and has contributed significantly to the innovation, IT and arts policy agendas in Australia over a period of 30 years. She was a British Council Scholar, was awarded a Centenary medal for service to business and in 2013 was named as one of the 100 women of influence by Westpac and AFR.

Dianna Somerville was born and bred in country NSW and is passionate about starting, accelerating and nurturing businesses in rural and regional Australia. Dianna began her career as a Naval Officer with the Australian Defence Force and has gone on to create grant-support business Regional Grants, Tenders and Corporate Services (RGTC); agricultural hackathon agrihack; regional innovation and small business conference 8point8; and co-founded the pop-up shop and co-working space Hubb Hubb. Di is the founder of Regional Pitchfest, the national pitching competition giving regional Australians the opportunity to pitch their business or idea to a live audience and expert panel, shining a spotlight on the great opportunities in our regional areas along the way.