2018

Dr Ahmed Imran has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in the field/s of information technology for development and information systems education. Dr Imran has developed a significant reputation in the field of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) internationally through diligent research developing challenges to the existing myths and theories applied to the adoption of ICT, which were essentially developed/used in the first world. His experience became invaluable for research in understanding the socio-cultural context and the implications and influence of IT in shaping the societies for the future. He is internationally recognised in the ICT4D field as a leading thinker and is regularly called to provide keynote presentations to academic and industry conferences. In parallel, Dr Imran has invested his passion and enthusiasm for employing IT for the benefit of society into undergraduate students using innovative teaching practices and into doctoral students through considered and inspirational mentoring and supervision.

2018

Steve has made a distinguished contribution to the development and implementation of ICT strategy and management through his senior leadership roles in diverse sectors including Engineering and Professional Services. In senior roles with an international organisation, he has been responsible for leading global ICT programs of work which has enabled organisational growth, business restructures and mergers and acquisitions. Steve has provided leadership in the design and implementation of a collaboration and benchmarking technology – Global Unite -which received Australian and international awards for excellence in innovation. He has had on ongoing international responsibility for the governance of ICT and technology standards, and has been recognised for his collaborative approach the development of strategic ICT plans. Steve has continually promoted ICT professional development opportunities to ICT practitioners and students. He is highly active in the ongoing development of ICT professionals and is an ACS Certification assessor and a SFIA Certified Consultant.

2018

Yohan Ramasundara has made a distinguished contribution to the IT industry through his significant and sustained leadership in the industry promoting professionalism, innovation and the successful integration of ICT with business and government operations. Yohan has been instrumental in energising and establishing innovation and start-up development programs in Australia and established critical links in those initiatives with the start-up communities in the United States and South-east Asia. Earlier in his career, Yohan engaged with the profession directly through the ACS and through the South East Asian Regional Computer Confederation (SEARCC). Through these leading professional societies, he developed and led several substantial initiatives to engage with the young professionals in IT to enhance their involvement in and engagement with the profession and to increase and refine their professional development. Yohan also initiated a prestigious ICT award recognition program to increase the reputation of ICT practitioners in Canberra.

2018

Malcolm has been regarded as the Grandfather of Information Technology in South Australia. He has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in the field of information technology management and industry development particularly of opensource technologies. Malcolm’s work with a state government in the early days of ICT provided the principles that formed the basis for IT management across that government. He has served as a mentor to companies in entrepreneurship and worked as a joint-venture capital partner within the telecommunications sector. Malcolm’s promotion and support of the nascent opensource industry and the production of position papers informing government and business of the benefits of a vibrant technology sector has been recognised widely.

2018

Dr Peter has made a long and distinguished contribution to ICT as an Australian innovator and business leader in the fields of emerging technology, technology platforms and services, media and telecommunications, and education. Peter is one of the great pioneers of the ICT industry in Australia. He has been active in the industry since 1985, and has been a leader and innovator in a number of diverse areas such as internet and telecommunications providers, marketing and communications specialists, ICT services and education providers, cyber security, robotics and drones, mapping and defence, as well as digital content delivery.

2018

Dr Ian Oppermann has made a distinguished contribution to ICT through his outstanding leadership in the ICT sector over 25 years. He is rare individual who combines widely-cited research and academic credentials, with a successful track record of entrepreneurialism, business transformation and a deep understanding of the innovation process. lan is widely recognised as a thought leader in the area of the Digital Economy and is a highly sought-after 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 peer reviewed papers which have been cited more than 3500 times. In addition to holding senior ICT management roles in Australia and Europe, Ian has also successfully led public/private sector organisations in delivering products and services that have impacted millions of people positively. Ian continues to have a significant influence on the practice of ICT above and beyond what is normally expected in his current roles of NSW Chief Data Scientist and CEO, of the NSW Data Analytics Centre, and as the National Committee President of the ISO/IEC JTC 1 (a joint technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission).

2018

Professor Caroline Chan has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in Australia in the fields of information systems and supply chain management. Working with global IT companies she is passionate about industry partnership, and has developed various university-industry initiatives as part of her Head of School role at a major Australian university. She has been recognised internationally for having established one of the most successful Information and Logistics Schoolsin Australia under her leadership. Caroline has also served as President of ACPHIS leading the IS discipline representing University professors and Heads of school to advance the discipline and to promote and influence government and industry in Information Systems. Professor Chan is active in a voluntary capacity as a mentor for National Youth Science Forum candidates and as a Rotarian contributing her ICT expertise to transition Rotary support systems from the desktop to the Cloud.

2018

As a pioneer in the ICT industry, Max Telfer has made distinguished contributions to the industry by introducing microprocessors into the education curricula which ultimately became the standard for Telecom (now Telstra). Over three decades ago, Max established Engineering degree courses at Chisholm Institute of Technology and overseas that were developed with computing subjects being added to the degree nomenclature. Max played a major part in designing the computer emphasis ensuring that in addition to meeting the Institute of Engineering Australia accreditation requirements, courses were designed to also meet the ACS’s accreditation requirements. The result was that many Institute graduates found employment in the ICT industry. During this period Max also created the first Graduate Diploma course in computer process control. The algorithms derived from his research notes were used to control major manufacturing plants resulting in enhanced manufacturing quality and cost reductions.

2017

Mohini Singh is a distinguished Professor of Information Systems whose contribution to academia and the discipline of Information Systems is outstanding. With over 130 scholarly papers, successful supervision of a number of PhD projects to completion, and teaching IT Management and E-Business to postgraduate students at Australian and international universities, her contribution to the field of Information Systems/Technology is notable. She has worked closely with Victoria Police on mobile technology research, the Department of Business and Innovation, Victoria Government on the Korean Trade Mission, the Parliament of Victoria on e-business policy development and the Australian Research Council as an assessor of excellence in research.

2017

Dr Andrew (Ed) Young has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in the fields of trusted systems particularly Mobile and Cloud Computing for over fifteen years. In addition, he has been providing advisory services to early stage innovation companies as well as education products and services to support the next generation of ICT professionals. In his professional life he has built the third largest Australian wagering company with internationally recognised mobile channels and employing over one hundred ICT professionals. Ed has also made scholarly contributions to ICT knowledge with the establishment of 'Emerging Systems' as a trusted mobile ad-hoc Internet of Things (IoT) distributed architecture. He continues, as a volunteer, to be an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Web Portals and an author with this publication.

2017

Professor Andrew Rohl is a distinguished researcher in computational science who is the Head of School of Electrical Engineering, Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Curtin University and director of the ARC Centre for Transforming Maintenance through Data Science. He was instrumental in establishing the $100 million Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, which is a key resource underpinning many computational fields in Australia. Through his leadership, Curtin has become a forerunner in data science, attracting both industry and government investment.

2017

Mr Ambarish Natu has made a distinguished contribution to ICT through his work as a key developer of the technical standards on image quality and security, particularly over wireless communications. Mr Natu has consistently volunteered his time over the last nearly two decades to develop and then have accepted as a standard his research work in JPEG image quality and security. His work with the international committee has resulted in three inter-related standards and a range of technical publicationsto support them. These standards underpin the technology in a range of common, widely-used applications including retrieval of satellite imagery by the Australian DSTG and NASA. His key role in the development of current standards has been recognized by the international standards organization (ISO) and by Engineers Australia.

2017

Dr Roland Padilla has made a distinguished contribution to the ICT community over the last decade through is passionate and knowledgeable advocacy for cloud computing. Dr Padilla established a cloud computing community of practice in Victoria promoting the disciplined adoption of thistechnology as it emerged, through coordinating professional events and a network of peers. He has translated that passion and foresight into leading academic publications in the area and in developing significant strategies for cloud computing in highly-sensitive environments. These contributions and his leadership in the cloud computing community in Australia have been supplementary to his career in ICT security in Australia.

2017

Dr Anastasia Govan-Kuusk has made distinguished contributions to information and communication technology in the field of professional ICT practice. As an academic and practicing professional Anastasia has been active in several professional societies at a senior level over the past decade orso which has been themeans by which she has been able to actively guide young practitioners and professionals. Dr Govan- Kuusk was also the inaugural member and facilitated the setup of the Australia-Japan Foundation Professions Exchange in which IT professionals still participate annually. Her continual drive to promote the profession is evidenced by the many publications that have profiled her contributions on a wide range of topics, as well as significant awards and grants she has attracted from bodies such as the Project Management Institute, the Northern Territory Research and Innovation Board and Professions Australia.

2017

Mr John Graham has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in the fields of school education administration and standards development. His work in the early days of administration in schools utilising computers laid the foundation for what was to follow in the ensuing years in Victoria. He led curriculum development in Computer Science as Chair of the Subject Committee for a number of years. Mr Graham has played a pivotal role in the development of standards relating to the governance of IT being one of the authors that produced the Australian IT Governance standard, AS 8015:2005 that became the International ISO/IEC 38500:2008. John continued to work with this standards committee and today is the Project Editor.

2017

Professor Foth has made a distinguished contribution to information and communication technology in the field of computer science and the new knowledge area urban informatics – the application of information technology to cities. Embedded in ubiquitous computing and human-computer interaction, Professor Foth is the international thought leader who coined the term urban informatics. By its nature, Urban Informatics is a confluence of many ICT disciplines including the Internet of Things, Big Data, Networks, Data analytics and more. Marcus’s work makes clear how academic research can successfully respond to societal challenges. Professor Foth is highly regarded by his peers and clearly has exerted significant influence, through his work, on academics globally.

2017

Professor Abdul Sattar has made a distinguished contribution to the field of information and communications technology in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Professor Sattar is internationally respected for his contributions to AI over more than two decades and for his sustained significant contributions to logic-based reasoning, local search methods for constraint solving and award-winning algorithms for SAT and other computationally hard problems. He has recently made significant contributions to one of the grand challenges in Life Sciences by applying artificial intelligence methods to solving 3D protein structure prediction problems. His leadership role in developing the Pacific Rim AI community for over 20 years and the Australian AI community is widely acknowledged amongst the AI fraternity globally.

2017

Professor Jeffrey Soar has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in the emerging fields of Health and Aged Care Informatics. Professor Soar is a thought leader who as both founder of the annual Aged Care Informatics Conference, which serves as a major communication and collaboration platform for this discipline in Australia as well as being Convener of Aged Care Informatics Australia, has played a significant role in the ongoing development of this discipline area. His work has included leading research in smart homes and ageing economics supported by the publication of over 170 papers. He is also founder of the Queensland Smart Home Initiative, an industry research consortium supported by the Queensland Government, Intel and others and his research currently attracts support from Chinese as well as Australian Governments.

2017

Mr Gary Gaskell has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in the field of Cybersecurity. Mr Gaskell is widely regarded as a thought leader through his contributions to the technology, policy and professional practice of Cybersecurity over many years. He was the first to define how to integrate smart cards into the Kerberos identity system a commonly used practice globally. Widely consulted by industry and Government, he has been a strong advocate for his chosen field. He has run a large number of workshops over the years to provide professional development for Cybersecurity professionals through his voluntary involvement with Cybersecurity organisations and conferences. Gary’s contributions have been recognised by industry in 2013 when he was named Information Security Professional of the Year.

2017

Dr Errol Martin has made a distinguished contribution to information and communication technology in academia and in the field of enterprise architecture. Errol has applied academic rigour to significantly influence the strategic IT directions and the enterprise architecture of several Federal Government organisations. His dedication to professionalism has led to the improvement of the practice of ICT by strengthening the professional practice ofthose in ICT through being a key influencer. Dr Martin has played a significant role as a senior academic in shaping the future structure of his university's school through re- design of the bachelor and the development of masters level information technology degrees at his university to meet emerging needsin government ICT.

2017

Michael Young has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in project management through his 12 years of voluntary involvement in developing Australian and international standards in project, program and portfolio management under ISO TC258. Driven by the desire to promote the benefits that better practice project delivery brings to organizations where there is a history of low project success rate, and the economy more broadly with a particular focus on the ICT industry he has led committees in peak project management bodies to develop competence and practice standards. Michael is holder of over 20 awards indicating the regard in which he is held by his peers in the profession and industry.

2017

Jack Burton has made a distinguished contribution to the field of ICT in open source software and promoting Australian technology innovation. His deep understanding of open source software is widely recognised and his successful strategic leadership of key open source software bodies has been exemplary. In particular, in the public policy arena he has been heavily involved in both submissions to national government on international trade and copyright and patent law over several years and has been called as an expert witness. He is a strong supporter of professionalism in ICT and has propagated his views widely amongst industry and since Jack practices what he preaches he has exposed all of his customers to professional practice in his business.

2017

John Sanders has made a distinguished contribution to the IT Profession through his pioneering development of technologies for international commodity trading and his participation in education programs for enterprise architecture and related disciplines. John was responsible for technology developments enabling global management of commodity exchange trading including the first such system in China. Over 50 banks worldwide continue to use the systems he created. John has also contributed in voluntary roles to important South Australian Government initiatives in information technology and as Accreditation Committee Chair for the Adelaide campus of Carnegie Mellon University. He continues to play a central creative role in the development of simulation exercises to prepare university students for professional practice in industry.