Conference MC

Sarah Moran

Sarah Moran is CEO and co-founder of Girl Geek Academy, a movement to help inspire one million women in technology and launch their own startups by 2025.

Sarah established Girl Geek Academy in 2014 alongside her four fellow co-founders, Lisy Kane, Tammy Butow, Amanda Watts and April Staines, as a place to learn, connect and inspire change.

Girl Geek Academy hosts programs for girls from the age of five right through to 95+ to inspire a generational shift in the way political leaders, schools, young girls and professional women think about and practice technology.

Girl Geek Academy has trained more than 1000 teachers in #MissMakesCode, the world's first hackathon for girls aged five to eight. That equates to a reach of more than 10,000 students in Australia now exposed to STEM education from the age of five.

Most recently the tram created Girl Geeks, a four-book series published by Penguin Random House's Puffin line to get young women who love tech into popular culture.

Keynote Speakers

Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz
Queensland University of Technology

Prof. Marek Kowalkiewicz is a Professor and Chair in Digital Economy at QUT Business School. Listed among the Top 100 Global Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence by thinkers360, Marek has led global innovation teams in Silicon Valley, was a Research Manager of SAP's Machine Learning lab in Singapore, a Global Research Program Lead at SAP Research, as well as a Research Fellow at Microsoft Research Asia. His latest book is called "The Economy of Algorithms: Rise of the Digital Minions".

Lou Markstrom
President & CEO, Results Group International + Author

Over the past 25 years, Lou has worked with over 50,000 individuals in a wide variety of companies, organisations and industries to improve results, transform cultures and drive outcomes. As the CEO of Results Group International, he is one of the APAC regions leading authorities in supporting organisations IT and DigitalTransformations. Recognised by HRTech Magazine as one of the APAC regions top10 organisational development organisations, we have helped more than 3,000 IT organisations make the transition from a reactive, technology-centric, order receiving culture to one that is the consultative, client-focussed, business partner of choice. Lou is the co-author of the book "Unleashing The Power of IT: Bringing People, Business and TechnologyTogether" (Wiley, CIO Series) . He has authored over 30 publications for CIO Magazine and is featured in the video series CIO Insights. He is currently working with CEO's, CIO's, HR Leaders, IT leaders, and executives to transform their cultures and development the talent in their organisations. Lou specialises in working with organisations and individuals to identify the future that they would like to achieve, the current state they are in and the skills and attitudes that will need to be developed in order to achieve it. 

Conference Speakers

Chris Hancock AM
AARNet

Zoran Sugarevski
Griffith University

Rowan Salt
The University of Queensland

Greg Sawyer
CAUDIT

Huw Davies
Queensland University of Technology

Sarah Yip
Leaders Lounge

Faith Timbs
Leaders Lounge

Phill Solomon
Deakin University

Joy Johnson
Queensland University of Technology

Jodie Jackson
CQUniversity

Danielle Anawati
Deakin University

Adrian Whitaker 
Associate Director, Learning Environments, QUT Digital Business Solutions

Kay England
UniSQ

Vee Ferreira
UniSQ

Bernard Meade
Deakin University

Nathan Guy
The University of Queensland

Charlie Hales
Waterstons

Helen Fawcett
Waterstons

Adam LePeilbet
Dell Technologies

Mina Mousa
Extreme Networks

Mark Keenan
Griffith University

Michelle Prendergast
Griffith University

Loryan Strant
 Rapid Circle

Sandra Lammas
UniSQ

Matt McAuley
Data#3

Peter Vanheck
CQU

Alex Mardon
Data#3

Jesse Drury
Intalock

Stuart Murdoch
Data#3

Ann Yardley
Bond University

Oliver Lavers
Queensland University of Technology

Ross Wood
Sekuro

Jonathon Hoff
CQUniversity

Chris Anderson
Cisco

Tim Morris
Queensland University of Technology

Craig McDougall
Queensland University of Technology

Kaushik Ramesh
Senior Cloud Development & Operations Engineer

Troy Wright
Principal Systems Engineer, Pure Storage

Mark Jefferys
Solution Architect, Digital Technology Solutions, University of Newcastle

Tim Bowden
Cisco

Jessica Lees
CQUniversity