The Australian Computer Society (ACS) will stage its annual Reimagination Thought Leaders Summit in Sydney on 1 December 2016.

Keynoting the event is Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist at MIT Sloan School of Management and author (with Erik Brynjolfsson) of the best-selling book, “The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies”.

According to McAfee, “Creative destruction is good news. Better products take market share from inferior ones, more nimble and innovative companies displace slow and sleepy older ones, and entire industries … can be swept away … This process should be encouraged, even though it’s not pleasant for all parties involved, and even though it leads to job loss and worker dislocation.”

At Reimagination 2016, McAfee headlines an impressive speakers list that includes the CEOs and Managing Directors of Intel Australia, Microsoft Australia, Mirvac Group, WiseTech Global, Stone & Chalk, Macquarie Telecom, Data61 and more. They are joined by the Innovation Ministers from NSW and Victoria as well as the recently retired Senator Stephen Conroy.

This year’s Summit seeks to provoke discussion and generate insights to help business leaders and government decision-makers consider key questions around:

  1. Entrepreneurship, innovation and new job creation
  2. Innovation and commercialisation
  3. Technology strategy from a company board’s perspective; and
  4. Government as an influencer of the development and pace of adoption of new technologies.

12 Nations to Participate in ACS Ministers Forum

The day before Reimagination, the ACS is staging a highly strategic, Ministerial Forum that leverages relationships with international ICT leaders to help inform policy development here in Australia.

Local tech heavyweights from government and industry will be joined by the Presidents and leaders of national ICT associations from Britain, Canada, China, India, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and Sri Lanka, along with IFIP President, Mike Hinchey.

The Ministerial Forum will include panel sessions on: the role of government as an influencer of innovation and economic growth; global approaches to building cyber resilience; and the impacts of the convergence of the Internet of Things, Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence, making it a unique opportunity for informed discussion on issues affecting Australia’s future.

The NSW and Victorian Ministers for Innovation are both playing active roles in key sessions and attendees will also be treated to presentations by the winners of the Australia 3.0 Wicked Policy Challenge, which used a series of hackathons to address real-world challenges in the NSW Government relating to ICT procurement and the usability of Open Data.

The ACS is a keen supporter of the Australia 3.0 process, which leverages the knowledge and experience of technology leaders to inform best-practice thinking about how best to position Australia to benefit from the information economy.