Join us for this highly anticipated forum of great minds and experts in ethical artificial intelligence (AI). UTS TD School is hosting an online symposium with distinguished speakers from a range of sectors and industries. See full program, sessions and speakers below. After registering via Humanitix, a Zoom webinar link will be emailed to you 24 hours before the event. Please feel free to submit questions to our panellists via the registration form.

UTS hosts

Host: Professor David Lindsay - Professor, UTS Faculty of Law. Lead academic of Ethical AI for Good Business microcredential
Host: Dr Nicole Vincent- Senior Lecturer, UTS TD School. Lead academic of Ethical AI for Good Business microcredential
MC and Facilitator: Associate Professor Heather Ford - Head of Digital & Social Media, UTS School of Communication
Moderator: Linda Przhedetsky - Policymaker and PhD candidate, UTS

Symposium sessions and industry guest speakers:

10.00 - 10.45am - Framing Opportunities and Challenges in Automation, AI and Digital Transformation

Sami Mäkeläinen - Head of Strategic Foresight, Telstra

10.45 - 11.20am - AI Governance, Regulation and Political Direction

Dr Ian Oppermann - NSW Government Chief Data Scientist and Industry Professor at UTS

11.30am - 1pm - AI Case Studies from the Public and Private Sectors

Jiaranai Keatnuxsuo - Cloud Solution Architect, Microsoft
Sarah Bell - Co-founder, RiTA and AIRE Software
Peter Leonard - Principal and Director, Data Synergies
Professor Simon Buckingham Shum, Professor of Learning Informatics and Director, Connected Intelligence Centre UTS

About our hosts and industry guest speakers, in order of appearance:

Associate Professor Heather Ford is Head of Discipline for Digital and Social Media in the School of Communications at UTS. She has a background working for global technology corporations and non-profits in the US, UK, South Africa and Kenya. A former Google Policy Fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, former Executive Director of iCommons and co-founder of Creative Commons South Africa, her research focuses on the social implications of media technologies and the ways in which they might be better designed to prevent misinformation, social exclusion, and algorithmic bias. Heather completed her DPhil (PhD) at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University. She has a Masters in Information Management and Systems (MIMS) from the University of California, Berkeley School and has worked as a fellow at Leeds University, Stanford University, as a Google Policy Fellow and as a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand LINK Center. Before her postdoctoral studies, she worked for a number of non-profit technology organisations including the Association for Progressive Communications, Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy International and Ushahidi. She was the Executive Director of iCommons, a global non-profit organisation started by Creative Commons between 2006 and 2008. She has been on the boards of the Wikimedia Foundation, iCommons and The African Commons Project where she worked towards the goal of fairer, more flexible intellectual property provisions for the Internet, particularly in developing countries.

Professor David Lindsay is a Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He is an expert in technology law, including intellectual property law, data privacy law and the regulation of new technologies; and is widely published in these areas. David is an editor of the Australian Intellectual Property Journal and, at UTS, is convenor of the Technology and Intellectual Property Research Cluster and the Legal Futures and Technology major. His current research includes a project investigating the regulation of consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices and a cross-disciplinary project aimed at guiding SMEs on the explainability of AI systems.

Dr Nicole Vincent obtained her BA (Hons) with majors in computer science and philosophy from La Trobe University then taught political philosophy, philosophy of law, and professional ethics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Nicole obtained her PhD from the University of Adelaide with a dissertation in philosophy of law entitled "Responsibility, Compensation and Accident Law Reform". Whilst working at Technische Universiteit Delft in The Netherlands, she developed an enduring passion for the ethics of emerging technologies initially completing a postdoc on a neurolaw research project entitled "The Brain and The Law". She was chief investigator on "Enhancing Responsibility: the effects of cognitive enhancement on moral and legal responsibility", leading a group of postdocs investigating the effects of emerging cognitive enhancement technologies (including smart drugs) on legal and moral responsibility. Concurrently, Nicole was also a research fellow at Macquarie University, developing her earlier work on responsibility and neuroscience in a project entitled "Reappraising the Capacitation Foundation of Neurolaw”. From 2013 until 2017 she was Associate Professor of Philosophy, Law, and Neuroscience at Georgia State University in the USA. In 2017 she returned to Australia and taught political philosophy and metaphysics at Macquarie University, as well as media at the University of New South Wales. In 2018 Dr Vincent joined TD School at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) as Senior Lecturer where she teaches a range of subjects including ethical technology & AI, complexity and the TD Honours programs

Linda Przhedetsky is an AI policy and regulation expert, with a background in consumer policy and advocacy. Her work in technology policy spans non-profit, government, and academic sectors, and she has helped shape key initiatives including the Consumer Data Right, the AI Action Plan, and the National Quantum Strategy. Her own research focuses on automated decision[1]making in competitive essential services markets. She is currently completing a PhD at UTS Law.

Sami Mäkeläinen has been with Telstra Corporation in Australia since 2009, in roles spanning from a mobile platforms subject matter expert to CEO Communications and Innovation Program Management. Currently, he is the Head of Strategic Foresight, focusing on long-term technology and other trends and how they impact the business, industry and society. Sami holds an MSc degree in Computer Science from the University of Helsinki and lives with his family in Melbourne, Australia. His current research interests include complex systems and architecting for resilience.

Dr Ian Oppermann is the NSW Government’s Chief Data Scientist working within the Department of Customer Service, and Industry Professor at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Ian has 27 years’ experience in the ICT sector and has led organizations with more than 300 people, delivering products and outcomes that have impacted hundreds of millions of people globally. He has held senior management roles in Europe and Australia as Director for Radio Access Performance at Nokia, Global Head of Sales Partnering (network software) at Nokia Siemens Networks, and then Divisional Chief and Flagship Director at CSIRO. Ian is considered a thought leader in the area of the Digital Economy and is a regular speaker on “Big Data”, broadband enabled services and the impact of technology on society. He has contributed to 6 books and co-authored more than 120 papers which have been cited more than 3500 times. Ian has an MBA from the University of London and a Doctor of Philosophy in Mobile Telecommunications from Sydney University. Ian is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia, a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW, a Fellow and Immediate Past President of the Australian Computer Society, and a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Ian is also president of the Australia National Committee of the IEC and president of the JTC1 strategic advisory committee in Australia.

Jiaranai Keatnuxsuo is a thriving endurance athlete, a Tech Optimiser, a STEM Advocate, a TEDx Speaker, and a multi-awards winner of Women in Technology Western Australia 2019, NASA Space App Challenge, Energy Hack, Transport Hack WA and UWA Innovation Challenge. Jia works Microsoft, empowering her customers to be more and do more with Data and AI in Environment and Sustainability realm.  You'll often find her involved in community events that increase technology accessibility and inclusiveness to the underrepresented groups such as encouraging other women to come into tech and inspiring disadvantaged students to be curious and confident in the world of STEM. Jia's superpower is failing fast and learning fast. Staying current in the world of fast changes, she strives to be 1 per cent better every day by cultivating her abilities through persistence and effort.

Sarah Bell is a commentator, agitator, and innovator, Sarah Bell is a co-founder of the proptech start-up AiRE, Artificial Intelligence for Real Estate. She helps real estate businesses to solve the problems of cost and scale by upskilling existing resources as well as helping them transition to digital resources using Aire.’s digital employee, Rita. Sarah is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Middlesex University (London) researching professional practice in Trust and Ethics in emergent technology.

Peter Leonard is a data and technology business consultant and lawyer. He is principal of Data Synergies, a business and legal consultancy, and Professor of Practice in the Schools of Information Systems & Technology Management, and Management & Governance at UNSW Business School. He focuses on business transactions with significant data, regulatory and cross-border complexities, often working as a data governance adviser and counsel assisting boards, law firms, business consultancies and in[1]house counsel to plan, structure and manage multiparty data ecosystems and complex data and AI driven deals and projects. He is also a director of a number of technology and data businesses. Peter was a founding partner of Gilbert + Tobin. Peter is a member of the NSW Government’s AI Review Committee and Privacy and Data Advisory Committee, and of the National Farmer Federation's Farm Data Code Working Group. He is immediate past chair of the Australian Computer Society’s AI Ethics Committee, of the Law Society of NSW Privacy and Data Law Committee, and the IoT Alliance Australia's Data Access and Use Workstream. He is past national Chair of the Law Council of Australia's Media and Communications Committee and past Global Chair of the Technology Committee of the International Bar Association.

Professor Simon Buckingham Shum has a career-long fascination with the potential of software to make thinking visible. His work sits at the intersection of the multidisciplinary fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Educational Technology, Hypertext, Computer-Supported Collaboration and Educational Data Science (also known as Learning Analytics). Simon is the Director of the UTS Connected Intelligence Centre and a Professor of Learning Informatics.