Frontiers of the Future Conference

Presented by Jim Whalley, the Chief Entrepreneur of South Australia.

South Australia is rapidly forcing its way onto Australia’s startup map. But can it leapfrog straight into being not just an Australian startup hotspot, but a global centre of startup excellence? With the right strategic approach it might not be as hard or unlikely as you imagine.

Lewis will detail a range of key learnings from the entrepreneurs perspective, specifically in the context of dealing with the uncertainty and chaos of the startup process. He will cover high level entrepreneurship theory and how it relates in practical terms in a startup, and will provide tools for entrepreneurs to improve their effectiveness in the high-growth, high- stakes startup game.

Based in Denver, Colorado, Heather is an internationally acclaimed speaker who presents compelling keynotes and workshops on a variety of topics, including how healing childhood trauma improves professional and personal relationships, why funding females is good for everyone, how to build inclusive cultures and the importance of tending to founder mental health. In addition to her speaking, Heather is a consultant with 25+ years of experience as a former healthcare executive who helps high-growth impact-driven organizations, startups and entrepreneurs develop growth strategies, find their true purpose, increase market presence and build key partnerships.

Chaired by Mohan Koo, Co-Founder and CTO at Dtex Systems.

Tantalise your tastebuds and join us on Victoria Square for a very special Street Food Activation with handful of SA's best Food Trucks and good tune to match

We need to look at challenges as opportunities; we need to be more adaptable and celebrate failures, mistakes, screw-ups, things that are broken and learn how we can do things differently and have ‘ta-da’ moments. We are living in unique times where 62 people have the same wealth as 3.5 billion people. Every industry is being disrupted significantly and if yours hasn’t been yet, it’s coming soon. Our economic model is played out and needs a reboot. We need innovation, fresh thinking and new approaches to help us create a better world. In this highly energising talk, Julie Trell will take us on a journey through what’s broken in order to open up our individual and collective mindset to see the possibilities for innovating a whole new path forward.

Let's look at authoring tools that are high-tech but use just a little bit of duck tape to get things done. We'll look at how volumetric capture, creating from with VR, mixing worlds with AR, recording your facial expressions, generating content automatically and even soft toys can be used to make glitchy, personal, expressive stories and experiences.

We’ve never been more technologically connected yet humanly disconnected, the rate of loneliness has more than doubled since the 1980s and the mental wellbeing of our society is in crisis. Human First is a thought-provoking look at how the way we are unconsciously creating and engaging with technology is impacting our humanity. Penny demonstrates why connecting with what it means to be human is critical to our ability to thrive in a world of exponential technological growth.

Tobi will unpack and share his learnings in starting and running a global business from South Australia. He will give insight into the achievements and challenges experienced along the way and aims to encourage others on their journey to business success, while helping to foster a forward thinking culture here in SA.

AI is everywhere. Apparently. Where will it have real impact and where is all the hype simply hot air? John will unpack real, near-term applications of AI across health, industrial uses, autonomy and elsewhere.

Gus Quiroga is the Australia and NZ leader of the Watson Customer Engagement Division of IBM. He is responsible for setting the vision in line with local market opportunities and global trends in the areas of AI enabled Marketing, eCommerce and Supply Chain.

In the digital era, AI helps governments, industries and society to harness the power of data - more efficient operations, more cost savings, higher profits and happier consumers. It has the capability to rapidly revolutionise traditional solutions and ways of thinking in the industry, provided that it can be followed up with real world applications and impact. AI and machine learning discover patterns from discriminated data, and build predictive capability from the derived patterns. To date, they are widely used in many areas such as financial market and search engines, and there is growing demand in infrastructure, transport and consumer markets. The impact of AI is in obtaining unique business insights and providing innovative solutions to better productivity, safety and customer satisfaction. This talk shares insights of how to create innovative AI solutions with huge versatility and international impact.

Presented by Greg Cross, Chief Business Officer at Soul Machines. Greg is one of the original tech nomad’s, who has spent his career travelling to and living in every major tech market in the world. He now lives in New Zealand but creates businesses that compete on the international stage. Most recently PowerbyProxi a company he co-founded was sold to Apple in 2017. In 2016 Greg teamed up with Dr Mark Sagar to create Soul Machines to focus on humanizing Artificial Intelligence and exploring the future of human machine cooperation. With global corporations like AutoDesk, Mercedes Benz and Royal Bank of Scotland as early customers Soul Machines is re-imagining what is possible in the delivery and underlying economics of highly personalized customer experiences and specialized knowledge. Greg is also the Sir John Logan Campbell Executive in Residence at the University of Auckland Business School.

That's a wrap at Town Hall for SouthStart day one, but the fun isn't over yet! Grab your friends - both old and new - and head on over to our After Party at Peel St!

This is a closed breakfast panel available for the first 100 registrants only.

We hope you had a great night at Peel St. It's time to soak in even more inspiration in our jam-packed day 2 lineup!

Matthew is currently the CEO of Complexica, a provider of Artificial Intelligence software for optimising sales & marketing activities, and a director of several ASX-listed companies, including Prophecy International (ASX: PRO), ComOps (ASX: COM), and LBT Innovations (ASX: LBT). Matthew is also a Limited Partner in Blackbird Ventures, with his business achievements having been featured in Time Magazine, Newsweek, and Forbes. Matthew co-founded SolveIT Software, a supply chain optimisation business he grew to $20 million in revenue before selling to Schneider Electric. He was also the co-founder of NuTech Solutions, raising over US$15 million in venture capital, founder of Fitness Forever, a personal training business, and later, the co-founder of CFG Investments, a money management and financial planning company with more than $150 million under management.

The Blockchain Technology is the most over hyped technology ever. In this discussion, Katrina Donaghy, Civic Ledger and Angela Difabio, New Venture Institute, will talk about the state of the blockchain beyond the hype and in the process bust some myths.

Through sharing not only the story of the founding of Vinomofo, but the twenty years of failures and learnings that led their, André shares his learnings around the importance of being human, being a brand that stands for something, something that people want to be part of.

Canva is Australia's unicorn. Come and hear the story from one of the co-founders. There is so much to this story, and all will be revealed in this rare fireside chat.

When you’re a founder, VCs and angel investors seem like mythical beasts, with super powers and ageless wisdom and the ability to remain invisible or suddenly appear to ask scary questions. Now I’m an investor, I can see what it’s like on the other side of the table, and it’s very different to what most of us think. To do a deal, it helps to understand the mindset of the other party, so what’s going on in the mind of an angel investor or VC? Is there anything more than ROI motivating their decisions? How can you use that to your advantage in securing investment for your startup?

Two in three Australians are diagnosed with skin cancer before the age of 70. Current diagnostic tests for skin cancer often leave the patients with scars in cosmetically sensitive areas like the head and face. Alongside his team, Professor Tarl Prow, Medical Microtechnology Laboratory Head at UniSA's Future Industries Institute, has developed a small needle device that can collect skin samples more easily than the traditional biopsy. This minimally invasive diagnostic device takes skin samples with a quick, painless click of a microneedle and leads to earlier detection of skin cancer, less surgery, and more frequent testing. In this field report, Professor Tarl Prow will describe the single use, microneedle device and how it is changing skin research.

Nanostructure can be utilized to influence biological function and overcome biological barriers for bioactive agents. Nanostructured drug delivery agents have great potential as the next generation of medicines, with improved safety and efficacy. Clay particles can be engineered with specific nanopores that soak up fatty oils and their digestion products, and reduce weight gain from fatty foods. Nanostructured clays offer great potential as anti-obesity agents, without the adverse effects of the currently available anti-obesity drugs. Presented by Clive Prestidge, University of South Australia.

Tantalise your tastebuds and join us on Victoria Square for a very special Street Food Activation with handful of SA's best Food Trucks.

Space is a unique domain with specific challenges and opportunities for startup companies. Pam Melroy will talk about some of these challenges and opportunities and give some examples of things for new companies to think about to help them succeed.

There are now no barriers to Australia returning to space. Every component, from launch sites through to downstream data analysis are, or will shortly be, available. All it now needs is us, and our drive and determination to challenge what we think is possible. But are we dreaming big enough?

New era of digital agriculture has begun: satellite imagery with daily revisit, adaptive machine learning models and user data are being combined to detect crop stress before it is visible to a human eye. How do we use the latest technology - from orbit to paddock, - to ensure the food security by growing more with less?

Flavia Tata Nardini began her career at the European Space Agency as a Propulsion Test Engineer. She then joined TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research to work on advanced space propulsion projects. In 2015, Flavia co-founded Fleet, a connectivity company set to maximise the resource efficiency of human civilisation through low cost, low power remote massive IoT. Fleet will launch the first of over 100 planned nanosatellites in 2018, enabling the next industrial revolution with a free, ubiquitous connectivity platform.

Avoid the limitations of STEM. Harness the $AUD111.7 Billion estimated annual value of Australia's creative and cultural industries. Embed artists in all Space.

Quantum technology, which harnesses the strangeness of quantum physics as a resource, promises to be as transformational in the 21st century as harnessing electricity was in the 19th. Today, a new industry is emerging as decades of fundamental scientific research are transitioning to commercial endeavours led by tech giants and a new generation of deep-tech startups. Q-CTRL is Australia’s first venture-capital-backed quantum technology company, focused on solving the toughest problems in the field - hardware failure - through the power of quantum control engineering. Hear how this startup, backed by some of the world’s largest and most respected investors, is helping to make the quantum future a reality. Presented by Michael J Biercuk, Founder and CEO at Q-CTRL Michael is one of the world’s leading experts in the new emerging field of quantum technology; the work he is doing promises to be as transformational in the 21st century as harnessing electricity was in the 19th. He is a Professor of Quantum Physics and Quantum Technology at the University of Sydney, and Founder of Q-CTRL, Australia’s first VC-backed quantum technology company. Michael was educated in the US, earning his undergraduate degree from the Univ. of Pennsylvania, and his Masters and PhD from Harvard. He has held positions as a consultant to DARPA in the US Department of Defense and also in the NIST Ion Storage Group working with 2012 Nobel Laureate David Wineland. Michael is a skilled public speaker connecting with audiences at all levels and sharing his views on the future of technology. He appears regularly on ABC television, is a TEDx speaking alumnus, and was awarded the 2015 Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher.

At just twenty-eight, Paul Vasileff’s personal achievements include being named the 2017 Young Australian of the Year, showing at London Fashion Week 2010, and graduating from Milan’s Europeo Istituto di Design. The young boy who learned to sew with his grandmother now heads a label that has become a national icon, captivating clientele and media alike with his whimsical designs and expert tailoring. Vasileff is a welcomed member of both the Australian Fashion Chamber and the Asian Couture Federation.A perfectionist with a penchant for classic beauty, the Adelaide designer has impressed the industry with his skilland the scope of his creative vision. Vasileff has a hand in every facet of the business and designs every couture gown that the label manufactures in the South Australian atelier. The Label The 2007 launch of the first Paolo Sebastian collection marked the seventeen-year-old designer’s foray into the fashion world.

In this session, internationally bestselling author Jay Samit will delve into the impact Artificial Intelligence, 5G, 3D Printing, Blockchain, Augmented Reality and the other Exponential Technologies will have on how we live, work, and play. As discussed in his book Disrupt Yourself!, Samit will outline the five things you can do today to create a successful startup and thrive in this era of endless innovation.