Future of IT in the Australian Government

Greetings from the Australian Computer Society 2013 Canberra Conference at Old Parliament House in Canberra. The conference topic is "ICT Shaping Our World", but as always the topic of the ACS Canberra conferences is IT in the Australian Government and in organizations supporting government. The conference comes at an interesting time for Canberra, with the public service adjusting to a new government which has an agenda to reduce cost by working in new ways. This is one of the few general computing conferences still run, which is not about a particular company's products or piece of software. This is a place to take the temperature of the IT industry and see what the trends are. It is also an opportunity for academia to report what they have been working on and is ready for transfer to the workplace. First speaker for the day is Nick Tate, President of the ACS, on big data and edible computers (a serious medical application). MOOCs at ANU also got a mention as part of the trend to on-line education.

The hashtag for the conference is "acscancon" and I will be blogging during the day.

Conference Program

                                                                                                                    

Conference - Wednesday - 30 October 2013
8:30	9:00	Arrival Coffee
9:00	9:10	Conference opening - Michael Hawkins, Conference Chair
9:10	9:30	Welcome address - Nick Tate, Australian Computer Society
9:30	10:05	Peter Lawrence, CIO, Department of Defence
10:05	10:40	Sakkie Janse van Rensburg,   CIO,University of Cape Town
10:40	11:00	Coffee Break and Exhibition
		Your World	Our World	Informing Your World	Governing Your World
11:00	11:40	Nathanial Maras, Department of Immigration and Citizenship	Graeme Philipson IT Wire	Jamie Azzopardi, Canon	Steve Bittinger
11:45	11:50	Change over
11:50	12:30	Nick Tate, Australian Computer Society	Jeff Mitchell, Australian Computer Society	Brett Anderson	Damian Brady, .NET User Group
12:30	1:00	Lunch & Exhibition
1:00	1:40	Dr Ian Oppermann, Director, CSIRO
1:40	1:45	Change over
1:45	2:25	Ian Doyle, Austraining International	Kevin Noonan, Ovum	Paul Taylor, iCognition	Matthew Hodgson, Zen Ex Machina
2:25	2:30	Change over
2:30	3:10	Gerald Kuehlich, Geosciences Australia	Charles Palmer, ACT Health	David Williams, ACTKM	David Eade, Objective
3:10	3:30	Coffee Break and Exhibition
3:30	4:10	Roehl Oringo, SME Gateway	Peter van der Made Author of BrainChip: Artificial Intelligence	Vladimir Videnovic, Oracle	Nigel Phair, CREST Australia
4:10	4:15	Change over
4:15	4:55	Mark Toomey, Infonomics Australia
4:55	5:00	Conference Close- Alan Patterson, Australian Computer Society
4:55	5:00	Closing Remarks - Jeff Mitchell, Branch Chair
5:00	7:00	Networking Drinks
7:00	10:00	Conference Dinner