ASCS 2023 Speakers

We had some amazing speakers at Australian Smart Communities Summit this year, below was who was in attendance.

Keynote speakers

  • Tracey Spicer AM BBus(Comm) GAICD is a multiple Walkley Award winning author, journalist and broadcaster who has anchored national programs for ABC TV and radio, Network Ten and Sky News.

    The inaugural national convenor of Women in Media, Tracey is one of the most sought-after on stage and online keynote speakers and MCs in the region. In 2019 she was named the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year, accepted the Sydney Peace Prize alongside Tarana Burke for the Me Too movement, and won the national award for Excellence in Women’s Leadership through Women & Leadership Australia. 

    In between MCing/speaking at live and hybrid conferences, working in corporate communications, and conducting media/presentation training sessions, Tracey has authored her latest book “Man Made” on the topic of bias built into the frameworks of technologies such as AI. 

  • Michael McQueen is a multi-award winning speaker, trend forecaster and bestselling author of nine books. With clients including KPMG, Pepsi and Cisco, he has helped some of the world’s most successful brands navigate disruption and maintain momentum.

    Michael is a regular commentator on TV and radio and his work has featured in publications ranging from the UK Daily Mail to Medium.com and the Huffington Post. In addition, Michael is a familiar face on the international conference circuit having shared the stage with the likes of Bill Gates, Dr. John Maxwell and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

    Michael has spoken to over 500,000 people across 5 continents since 2004, and is known for his engaging, entertaining and practical conference presentations. Having been formerly named Australia’s Keynote Speaker of the Year, Michael has been inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame.

Guest speakers

  • First elected to City of Parramatta Council in 2017, Cr Sameer Pandey was elected Lord Mayor in May 2023, and is the City’s first Lord Mayor from the Indian subcontinent.

    A small business owner with a background in technology and law, Cr Pandey is passionate about ensuring Council delivers what community and local businesses need. Building on the work done by Council over many years, Cr Pandey’s vision is for a healthy, liveable, smart, sustainable and inclusive City. Cr Pandey is focused on ensuring Parramatta continues to thrive as a major economic powerhouse and as the best place in Sydney to live, work and play.

    Lord Mayor Pandey also served as Deputy Lord Mayor from January 2022 – May 2023 and represents the Parramatta Ward. 

  • With a deep expertise in local government governance and smart city infrastructure, Dean Mortimer is a seasoned Senior Smart City Projects Officer. He possesses a remarkable portfolio of successful projects and strategies that has enhanced community services in both local and state government.

    Dean is a passionate advocate for utilizing technology to enhance public spaces, education, and decision-making processes. His commitment to integrating smart solutions has provided impressive results, from a large scale rollout of Smart Nodes which offer accelerated opportunities of 5G and public Wi-Fi, to establishing an interconnected IoT network and strategic EV charging strategy. He excels in navigating the complexities of government dynamics, fostering collaborations, and effectively communicating technical details.

    As a visionary in the field, Dean remains dedicated to increasing Smart City awareness in government. His goal is to create thriving, data-driven, and economically advanced cities that understand the community's needs and ensure that strategic infrastructure and innovative technology are embraced.

  • Harman is a member of the AECOM-GHD Joint Venture, which provides technical advisory services for the Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP). Harman works in LXRP’s “HIVE” innovation and improvements team, where he pursues his passion of developing innovative solutions for transportation and construction industries. He leads some of HIVE’s Research and Innovation initiatives, such as Smart Parking, Connected Sites and Connected Worker. He undertakes the assessment of options, planning and trialling of various technologies, manages diverse stakeholders and provides strategic oversight of the long-term sustainability of such innovations for LXRP and beyond.

    Harman brings with him 20 years of global experience with various technology-related businesses in the USA, Dubai, India and Australia. In the past, he served as the Chief Innovation Officer at Brady Family of Companies, USA, where he led the organisation to be awarded the “Most Innovative Workplace” in North Carolina in 2017. Harman holds an MBA from London Business School and currently serves on the Standards Australia’s committee for Smart City Systems with a goal to foster the development of standards in this innovative space of smart cities. He is a regular speaker on smart technologies, applied innovation and digital transformation.

  • Aside from being a rugby tragic, and an expert at collecting sporting injuries, Liam is also Chief Commercial Officer at SAPHI - a team of emerging technology experts hell-bent on providing clients with the tech-agnostic solutions they need to do things smarter. With a passion for helping companies in navigating the complexities of emerging technologies, Liam is driven by a commitment to prevent clients from falling prey to product-based companies that overpromise and underdeliver.

    His team is no stranger to navigating the complex world of technology, having orchestrated Australia's largest smart green infrastructure project, the world's first underground explosive delivery system, AI imaging systems for infrastructure utilisation tracking and advanced drone systems for mine remediation, just to name a few.

    His team's philosophy? Leverage the best possible technology, stop vendor lock in and always do the right thing by the client.

  • Pearl is the Head of Smart City, Innovation, and Improvement at the City of Casey, a rapidly growing Council in Australia. With a future-focused agenda, she leads the integration of smart technology, collaboration, and innovation to enhance sustainability and resilience in the local region.

    Trained as an engineer at the University of Melbourne, Pearl has a diverse background spanning professional services, non-profit, and government sectors. She has been recognized with esteemed awards, including the IBM Manager's Choice Award and the IBM Global Service Excellence Award. Alongside her role, Pearl is pursuing a Ph.D. in Built Environment at RMIT, focusing on innovation in the construction sector, and is an active member of the Smart Cities Council and Australian Smart Communities Association.

    Passionate about promoting women in STEM and harnessing technology for positive impact, Pearl has been acknowledged as one of Science & Technology Australia's Superstars of STEM. She has also been featured in Women's Agenda as an influential trailblazer. In addition, Pearl serves as the Regional Lead with Women in BIM, supporting the adoption of BIM and driving diversity and inclusion across the construction sector in Asia.

    Through her leadership and research, Pearl propels positive change in smart city initiatives while inspiring others. With her expertise, she remains committed to making significant contributions to innovation, sustainability, and empowering women in STEM.

  • Brook is Group CEO and Managing Director of Delos Delta, leading smart city, innovation, data, and digital programs for clients around the world. Expert in both smart city strategy and project delivery, Brook is recognised as one of the Asia-Pacific’s preeminent smart city practitioners.

    Brook combines financial and economic management with hands-on experience in modernising systems, process and structures which has led to the successful implementation of major projects and policy reforms.

    Brook is a former president of the Australian Smart Communities Association, where he worked with members to improve smart tech capacity, investment, and results.

    As a Churchill Fellow, Brook has visited and studied the drivers of digital transformation in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

  • City of Melbourne Pilot and Trial Lead, Gemma Baxter seeks projects that impact people. With a career spanning architecture, fashion design, branding and marketing, service design and smart cities, Gemma contributes rigourous trialling processes, an appetite for solving complex problems, the ability to bring together diverse teams to collaborate meaningfully and a community-centric mindset to the multi-disciplinary Smart City Incubator team.

    While at City of Melbourne she’s helped develop key communication tools to drive meaningful community engagement in smart city conversations and been an active contributor to the local smart cities ecosystem. The Smart City Incubator at City of Melbourne has been acknowledged with three awards in the past 12 months from their leading work across open space sensing, community engagement tools and a digitally-enabled community space pilot – Micro-Labs.

  • Josh Devitt is a regionally based civil engineer who has worked in the public works sector for close to 20 years. Over this time, he has worked with Council’s across NSW in urban, regional and rural settings. Josh also has more than 6 years’ experience in the Australian higher education sector, most recently as the course director of engineering at Charles Sturt University.

    As Chief Engineer at IPWEA NSW & ACT, Josh is responsible for advocacy to state and federal governments, providing technical guidance to members, and for undertaking research to advance the public works profession.

  • Matthew Schultz is a Partner and Company Director at Gravelroad Group and an Executive leader with expertise in all facets of next-generation connectivity including 5G, digital infra-structure, Smart City & Internet of Things, and data and AI driven digital strategy and delivery within high-profile operations. Matthew is skilled in collaborating within organizations and in-dustry to achieve business, financial and service delivery objectives.

    Matthew is also Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s G20 Global Smart Cities Digital Infra-structure Taskforce, Co-founder and a past National President of the Australian Smart Commu-nities Association and a member of the ACS National IoT Committee. He is also an inaugural Board Director of Open Data Australia, a member of Standards Australia IT­042 Internet of Things Standards Development Committee and Standards Australia Smart Cities Advisory Group.

  • Rory is the Executive Director, Smart Places, in the Cities and Active Transport Division and has been part of NSW’s Smart Places revolution since its inception in 2019. In this role he drives the NSW Government agenda to deliver great places and outcomes for people using connected technologies and data solutions, working collaboratively across all tiers of government, with the research and academia sector and industry. His passion lies in taking a people, community and business lens first and understanding how the technology and data can deliver benefits for them today, in a safe, ethical and equitable way.

    An executive leader with over a decade of C-level advisory experience, Rory has a track record in delivering strategy, transformation and developing enterprises. His prior commercial roles have included growing SeventeenHundred, a digital platform provider of diversity solutions, leading product, strategy and development organisations for Optus, and leading SingTel Group’s Consumer Cloud business.

  • Susan Skuodas has a career history of over 25 years in the public and private sectors, with experience in in strategy development and execution, stakeholder and community engagement, communications, customer experience, event delivery and place making.

    As a member of the Sydney Olympic Park Authority executive leadership team, Susan oversees the Place Management division that focuses on delivering high quality, effective and sustainable place outcomes and customer experiences to activate public spaces, providing safe, inclusive and connected places, build a strong sense of community and neighbourhoods and driving visitation and engagement for one of Sydney’s most treasured and iconic precincts.

    In recent years, Susan has been collaborating with NSW Government and private industry on a range of Smart projects, including the NSW Government’s SmartShuttle trial of autonomous vehicles, new crowd management and experience technologies and building community trust in digital technologies, and in the development of Smart place strategies for developing future cities and precincts.

EVENT MC

  • A multi award-winning engineer, Churchill Fellow and data scientist with extensive global experience, Zoe takes the overwhelm out of the technology conversation. She does this by sharing stories and insights which surprise, engage and educate about what is possible through technology and data. Zoe is determined to not do things the way we’ve always done them. Her engineering mind and unique background allow her to critically analyse her experiences and draw practical conclusions for the future with wit, humour and grace.

    Zoe keeps up-to-date with the latest trends and shares her learnings through hosting The Smart Community Podcast. Through her boutique consultancy My Smart Community, she works with government, academia and industry offering strategic advice on dealing with disruption, leveraging major infrastructure spend, smart technology in all communities and facilitating genuine collaboration.

  • Brooke Knox is Director of the Lighthouse Innovation Projects team at Transport for NSW. Brooke manages early-stage innovation and technology programs from concept through to launch.

    These programs utilise a combination of emerging technologies, to test and learn, and often deliver solutions to Transport’s most complex problems. Brooke work’s with a range of industry partners to bring external expertise into Transport, and works collaboratively with the Transport ecosystem, external partners and across government.

  • George Sfinas is an Engagement Manager at Standards Australia, overseeing the Information Media & Tel-ecommunications, and Transport, Postal and Warehousing sectors. George engages with organisations and stakeholders across Australia to ensure Australian and international standards are fit-for-purpose and reflec-tive of industry.

    George overseas multiple ‘Smart Communities’ standardisation committees, which include IT-268 Sustaina-ble Cities and Communities and IT-269 Smart Cities Systems.

  • A global engagement leader, Kylie has 30 years’ experience in communication and stakeholder engagement. She specialises in helping clients to maintain and regain their social licence through mitigating social risk and managing community outrage.

    Kylie chairs the Australian National University’s Advisory Board for the Institute for Infrastructure in Society (which oversees the NextGen research into community engagement trends). She was the Global Chair of the International Association of Public Participation (the professional association for the consultation/ engagement industry) from 2017-2022 and was on the Australian IAP2 Board from 2011-2021.

    In 2022 Kylie was named one of three inaugural Honorary IAP2 fellows across Australia and New Zealand. She was named a Deloitte Outstanding 50 LGBTI+ leader in 2020. She was the opening speaker at the 2019 United Nations Conference on Engagement. She was named the IAP2 Inspirational Engagement Leader in 2019, and she was the 2018 Consult Australia Female Champion of Change.

    Over the last decade Kylie has built Aurecon’s Communications and Stakeholder Engagement business from nothing to one of the leading communications and engagement businesses in ANZ. Over the last seven years the Aurecon communications and engagement team has won more than 18 coveted industry awards including the International Engagement Project of The Year, the National Women in Construction Innovative Team award, and Consult Australia’s Gold Excellence Award.

  • Michael Whereat has worked in local government on the Sunshine Coast for 24 years and been Smart Cities Lead for the last 8 years.

    Today, Michael leads a small team working with half of all Sunshine Coast Council branches to im-plement the Smart City Framework & Implementation Plan 2022-25. The Innovation Pipeline has consolidated over 550 problem/ideas into 235 unique problems. With 80 operational solutions and 130 moved to watching brief, we have matured the process of validating and facilitating through to an operational status that is ultimately owned and implemented by the organisation. The Smart In-frastructure Manual is the most recent addition to our cache of guiding plans and documents that facilitate Smart Cites outcomes for the Sunshine Coast. Michael has contributed to these smart city projects: – Sunshine Coast submarine Cable and terrestrial networks; Maroochydore City Centre; Tel-ecommunications and associated enabling infrastructure for smart city Internet of Things installations and Testing Tech in Paradise.

    Previously Michael was the founding Co-Chair of the Broadband Today Alliance est. 2010 and this role became founding President of the Australian Smart Communities Assn in 2014 when the former group became incorporated as a not for profit. In both of these volunteer roles, Michael sought to help rise the tide of knowledge and capability of local government officers to the benefit of all.

  • Soraya is a multi-disciplinary technology and media executive with a focus on management, strategy and business development. Currently Strategic Initiatives manager, and the critical and emerging technologies lead at Standards Australia focusing on AI, cybersecurity, 5G, blockchain, IoT and smart cities.