Technical Advisory Board Members

FACS CP

Dr David Cook

Vice President - Academic Boards

Technology advocate dedicated to advances and the progression of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and cyber security, combined with research and academic engagement in six main areas, Business, Information Technology, International Relations, Security, South-east Asia, and Governance. Fluent in South-east Asian languages

MACS CP

Mr Mathias Gaertner

Director - Technical Advisory Board

Mathias Gaertner is a publicly accredited and sworn in expert witness for IT, Vice President at NIFIS e.V. MACS Snr CP (Cyber Security), IP3P Lecturer at the University of Applied Science in Darmstadt/Germany, Information and Computer Science Member Technology of the Steering Committee of the “Initiative IT-Sicherheit in der Wirtschaft” of the German Federal Minister of Economics and Technology Vice Chairman Global Information Security Forum, Diplomatic Council Vice Chairman of the National Initiative for Information Security, NIFIS e.V. Technical advisory panel Tripoli Rocketry USA CCIE #11220 since Mar. 2003, emeritus since 2015

AACS

Ms Aurelie Jacquet

Chair – AI Ethics Committee

Aurélie is an independent consultant who advises ASX 20 companies on the responsible implementation of AI, and she also works as Principal Research Consultant on Responsible AI for CSIRO-DATA61. She is a member of the NSW AI Assurance Committee, of the UNSW AI Institute Advisory Board, and the co-chair of Australia Computer Society’s AI Ethics Committee.

She leads multiple global responsible AI initiatives with ISO, WEF and the OECD, shaping emerging AI standards, certifications and AI governance best practices/frameworks. She also worked for the European Commission as an expert as part of their international outreach initiative on sustainable and trustworthy AI.

AACS

Professor Kimberlee Weatherall

Chair – AI Ethics Committee

Professor Kimberlee Weatherall is a Professor of Law at the University of Sydney Law School. Her research spans intellectual property law, the relationship between law and emerging technologies, and international trade law. Her research program has a strong interdisciplinary focus, having included projects with economists, cognitive psychologists, and, currently, social scientists and data science. She has been a member of assorted government advisory committees including the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property, and is a past winner of Linux Australia’s Rusty Wrench award for contributions to the open source community for her work on law reforms consequent on the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement

AACS

Mr Louay Ghashash

Chair – Cyber Security Committee

Louay is a Director with over 22 years' experience in Information security across number of industries. He has also acted as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) across number of customer engagements including Non-for-Profit and Retails and FSI. Louay has been providing advisory services for number of industries sectors: Banking & Finance, Transport, Government, Oil & Gas, Manufacturing and Gaming sectors. He has solid experience in providing security advisory for senior managers and Board of Directors. Louay has completed and lead number of large and medium security transformation programs across industries including Finance, Emergency, Utilities sectors, Fast food, City Councils, e-commerce and others. Louay has a solid technical background in technology and security technical solutions and controls. Louay holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master Degree in Networking Systems Engineering. He also holds the following industry certifications: CISA, CISM, CRISC, QSA and ISO27001LA

MACS Snr - CP

Mr Joseph Dalessandro

Vice Chair – Cyber Security Committee

Joseph (Joe) Dalessandro, MS, has extensive experience and qualifications in information security, risk management, and audit and has worked around the world in roles in both audit and information security. Joe spent four years in Australia with Vanguard setting up their first Internal Audit department outside the USA, and he then served as Vanguard’s Global Head of Internal Audit for the Asia-Pacific region, covering Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. He also worked in information security at Vanguard’s USA headquarters conducting third-party cybersecurity assessments and providing cyber security controls and regulatory guidance. Joe is currently Head of Security and Technology Audit and Audit Data Analytics for an Australian corporation. He also does private consulting and teaches cybersecurity concepts, including cyber risk, crisis response, and technical security audit in the Graduate programs at Tulane University and Brandeis University both in the USA. Joe is a member of a number of professional associations including the IEEE, ISACA, AISA, and is a Senior Member (MACS Snr) and Certified Cybersecurity Professional with the Australian Computer Society (ACS).

AACS

Ms Karen Cohen

Chair – Blockchain Committee

Karen Cohen aka “blockmum” is the Founder and Director of Emerging Tech HUB, a company that helps humans connect to Emerging Technology. She is the Founder of Women in Emerging Tech and Previous Deputy Chair for Blockchain Australia. She is the Community and Events Manager for Stables. She is the 2022 Blockies award winner for Community Champion. Karen is the previous program manager for Inspiring Rare Birds where she ran the Prime Minister and Cabinet Office for Women mentoring scholarship program. She also ran females in Fintech program for Stone and Chalk sponsored by LaunchVic . She founded and ran AlgoHUB the Developer and Student Community Hub for Algorand Foundation.

MACS - CP

Mr Stefano Tempesta

Vice Chair – Blockchain Committee

Stefano Tempesta is a technologist working at the crossroad of Web2 and Web3, to make the Internet a more accessible, meaningful, and inclusive space. Stefano is an ambassador of the use of AI and blockchain technology for good purposes. A former advisor to the Department of Industry and Science, Australia, on the National Blockchain Roadmap, he is also a technology advisor to Aetlas, a decentralised climate action and sustainability network with a mission to source Verified Carbon Units for liquidity and carbon asset monetisation.

Stefano is a lecturer at RMIT University on courses about AI and blockchain technology, and he has co-authored the book "Blockchain Applied" for Taylor & Francis.

AACS

Mr Tom Zorde

Chair – IoT Committee

Tom Zorde leads purpose driven communities to future-proof Australia for a changing digital world. He convened and lead volunteers to deliver a free-to-use wireless Internet of Things Communications Network for Western Australia which now enables entrepreneurs, academia, industry, rural and city councils. His efforts were recognised by the Australian Computer Society awarding the project the 2018 Digital Disruptor award for transforming skills of work teams 21 to 200 staff. In addition to launching the world’s first certified internet of things practitioner accreditation in compliance with ANSI/ISO/IEC 17024 standards, Tom is a respected leader nurturing collaboration across industry, government and academia, and is a sought-after advisor for organisations embarking on digital transformation. Twitter: @TomZorde LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/zorde

AACS

Mr Peter Runcie

Vice Chair – IoT Committee

Peter is an independent consultant assisting organisations with the development and implementation of digital and data technology solutions. Current focus areas include natural hazards, resilience, sustainability and smart cities.  He is the Natural Hazards and Smart Cities Lead for the NSW Smart Sensing Network. Peter has had previous technical management roles at CSIRO’s Data61, National ICT Australia, Avaya USA, Bell Laboratories, Woolworths, GIO Australia and several SMEs including as the CIO of a technology based retail startup. Peter is an inventor on 29 granted interational patents in voice and video communications, data networking and biometrics, civil engineering and data analytics.

Peter holds an MBA (Exec) from the Australian Graduate School of Management and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Peter is a member of numerous committees including the NSW Government Smart Places Advisory Council, City of Parramatta Smart Cities Advisory Committee, Australian Network for Structural Health Monitoring and Standards Australia Sustainable Cities Technical Committee IT-268.

MACS - CP

Dr Graeme Port

Chair – Data Sharing Committee

Dr. Graeme Port has been an innovator and leader in enterprise software product development and data architecture for over 30 years. Graeme has been a thought leader and architect in multiple major government information sharing projects, particularly in the area of sharing sensitive information for child protection decision making. In 2015, seeing the challenges and opportunities for sharing data across government, private and public sources, Graeme co-founded Factil with the mission to provide advanced solutions for information modeling and data integration. Factil has been directly involved in multiple major government information sharing projects, and developed innovative technology of data modeling, data integration and data matching. Previously, Graeme was co-founder, head of engineering and CTO at ManageSoft, which built market-leading products in application development, application deployment and business intelligence. Graeme received his PhD from the University of Melbourne in the field of Logic Programming.

AACS

Dr Stephen Hardy

Vice Chair – Data Sharing Committee

Dr. Stephen Hardy is the group leader for Data Platform Engineering at Data61, where he leads teams focussed on privacy preserving machine learning and government data analytics. He was previously Technology Director for Computational Analytics at NICTA, running data analytics projects across telecoms, finance, health and government. He also led the $18m, 3-year “Big Data Knowledge Discovery” project funded by CSIRO’s Science and Industry Endowment Fund. Stephen's has a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Sydney. He spent 12 years in R&D at the Image and Video R&D Centre at CISRA, Canon’s Sydney lab, where he was Senior General Manager. There he produced a number of innovations that were used in Canon's products worldwide. He is an inventor on 21 US patents and current applications and author of over 20 academic publications.