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Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Australia’s First Computer Conference

Announcement posted by Pearcey Foundation 09 Feb 2022

Pearcey Foundation hosting Riding the Digital Wave Summit on Thursday 24 February at the University of Sydney; event to feature stellar line-up of Australian technology industry thought leaders

The Pearcey Foundation has announced the agenda and speakers for the Riding the Digital Wave Summit at the University of Sydney on Thursday, 24 February 2022. The event, to be opened by the Hon. Victor Dominello MP, Minister for Customer Service, and Minister for Digital, NSW Government, features keynotes from Professor Genevieve Bell, Director, School of Cybernetics and 3A Institute and Dr Ian Oppermann, Chief Data Scientist, NSW Government. 

Event details:

The Riding the Digital Wave Summit

The Refectory, The University of Sydney

Thursday, 24 February 2022

9:00am – 1:00pm AEDT (followed by lunch)

Tickets: $297

Event URL: https://heritage.pearcey.org.au/riding-the-digital-wave-summit

The summit commemorates the 70th anniversary of Australia’s first computer conference, held at the University of Sydney in August 1951, which marked the beginning of computer science in Australia. Organised by staff from the CSIRO and the University of Sydney’s Electrical Engineering Department, the Conference on Automatic Computing Machines was a pivotal moment in the industry and showed Australians the possibilities of the new world of digital computing in their own country. One of the highlights for delegates was a world-first demonstration of a computer playing music. (See further, https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2019/03/04/did-you-know-the-first-computer-to-play-music-was-at-sydney.html)

The Riding the Digital Wave Summit’s panel sessions will feature speakers including:

  • Roger Allen, Co-founder, Director and Chairman, Allen & Buckeridge
  • Distinguished Professor Fang Chen, Executive Director UTS Data Science and UTS Data Science Institute, University of Technology Sydney
  • Alisdair Faulkner, CEO and Co-founder, Darwinium
  • Chris Ferrie, Senior Lecturer, UTS Centre for Quantum Software
  • Professor Gernot Heiser, Scientia Professor and John Lions Chair, UNSW
  • Liz Jakubowski, Director – Digital, National Skills Commission
  • Rashmi Karanth, Head of Products & Delivery, Quasar
  • Professor Tanya Monro, Chief Defence Scientist, DST
  • Daniella Traino, Group Chief Information Officer, Wesfarmers Limited
  • Professor Flora Salim, Professor, Data Science, RMIT University; Incoming Professor and CISCO Chair of Digital Transport, Centre for Critical Digital Infrastructure, UNSW Sydney
  • Dr Jon Whittle, Director, CSIRO’s Data61

The full agenda for the summit and speaker profiles can be found online at https://heritage.pearcey.org.au/riding-the-digital-wave-summit-program.

“We are using this anniversary event as an opportunity and a platform to find out what we have learnt as an industry over these seventy plus years. As well, we are intent on capturing what we all hope and believe the future holds for society, given the incredible role that digital technology, the internet, telecommunications and other innovations are playing in our nation’s everyday life today,” said Wayne Fitzsimmons, chair, Pearcey Foundation.

Due to the enthusiastic response for the event but the difficulty for many interstate speakers to attend the conference in person, Pearcey Foundation is expecting to receive a lot of additional presentations and other material which will be published online as a permanent record of the event – together with archival content from the original conference in 1951. Details on this will be available on the Pearcey Heritage site at https://heritage.pearcey.org.au at a later date.

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About the Pearcey Foundation
The Pearcey Foundation Inc. is a non-profit organisation established in 1998 to raise the profile of the Australian Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry and profession. It was created in the memory of one of the greatest pioneers of the Australian ICT industry, Dr Trevor Pearcey. By celebrating the heroes in our industry, past present and future, the Foundation is looking to attract and encourage young Australians into this most exciting of global high technology sectors of our nation.


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