The Hatchery

Dr. Dale A. Lambert PSM is the Chief of Cyber and Electronic Warfare Division in the Defence Science and Technology Group within the Australian Department of Defence. Dr. Lambert enjoys a world-class reputation for higher-level data fusion research and, amongst other things, designed and implemented an artificial intelligence system for Sweden’s airborne defence that was subsequently on sold to at least Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan and Greece.

Dr. Lambert is the current Chair of the Executive Chairs of The Technical Cooperation Program, the largest cooperation on defence science and technology between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. In this role he has administrative oversight across a broad range of programs between the five nations. He additionally performs a number of roles with universities and industry.

In 2015 he received the IEEE Harry Rowe Mimno Award at a ceremony in Washington DC for “excellence in technical communication”. He was awarded the Public Service Medal in the Australia Day 2020 Honours List for “outstanding public service in the use of artificial intelligence in surveillance and reconnaissance, command and control, intelligence and autonomous platforms”.

Paul is Chief Data Officer (CDO) at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, responsible for advancing the Department’s ambitions to become a data-driven organisation focused on the wellbeing of veterans and their families. Since completing degrees in medicine and neuroscience at the University of Sydney, and his residency at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Paul has explored the interface between health, healthcare, data and policy. This has seen him lead an award winning aged care electronic medical record start up prior to joining Microsoft as their clinical analytics lead, where he engaged with senior healthcare leaders from across the Asia Pacific and Middle East.

Prior to his current role, he was Chief Executive Officer of the Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre healthcare analytics startup Lorica Health. He has also served as a Senior Adviser to a Federal Health Minister and was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship in 2015 to examine his interests in the use of data to support clinician performance feedback and population wellbeing.

Piyush is a business focused lead data scientist and big data consultant with over 10 years of experience making data-driven discoveries, uncovering actionable insights and enabling decision-making to improve business outcomes. He was nominated for “ACS Digital Disruptors Awards – 2018”.

Piyush is currently working as a Practice and Capability Lead for AI, Data Science and Analytics at the Department of Transport (previously VicRoads). Recently, received a special recognition from Minister Jaala Pulford and her Deputy Secretaries of his work in AI in transportation and solving business problems around road safety and incidents management.

Piyush did his Ph.D. in Applied Machine Learning with a particular focus on complex systems, graph theory and analytics from The University of Queensland, followed by a prestigious CSIRO Office of the Chief Executive Post-Doctoral Fellowship to work on solving complex big data problems. He has published several high-impact papers in applied machine learning and graph analytics space and developed open-source data science tools & analytical platforms which attracted national media attention in 2012.

Besides practising AI and data science, he is passionate about knowledge sharing & developing relevant learning paths with industry focus and mentoring teams to advance into their data career. He is a lead data science technical trainer and learning coach on data strategy and Industry 4.0 units at the Swinburne University.

Alex is a trusted and experienced Data Science leader, with a proven record of delivering innovative, successful and sustainable projects in government, industry and start-ups, that leverage Machine Learning/AI capabilities to inform decision making.

He has expertise in collaborating with organisations to turn business problems into technical solutions, by developing and managing high-performance teams, and providing strategic advisory and technical expertise.

Alex has over 17+ years’ experience developed across a number of industries and domains, including Federal and State government, Insurance, Asset Management (Hedge Funds), Banking (Investment and Retail), Academia and Consulting.

Alex aims to educate, guide, inspire & influence through his blog (https://impartiallyderivative.com), Meetups (Data Science Canberra & Canberra R Users Group) and mentoring initiatives.

Alex has recently been recognised as one of the Top 10 Analytics Leaders in Australia by IAPA (Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia).

Andrew has 30+ years’ experience working in many facets of Government ICT design, delivery and support. Data management, data warehousing, business intelligence, and getting value from unstructured data are his principal areas of expertise.  Currently works for Catapult BI, a data management consultancy company. 

He is the Past President of DAMA Australia, the Data Management Association and current Branch Head of the DAMA’s Canberra Branch.  He is the organiser for the Data Modeling Zone Asia Pacific, an annual training event on data design held in Australia, Europe and the US.

Selvaraaju (Selva) Murugesan received the B.Eng. degree in Mechatronics Engineering (Gold medalist) from Anna University in 2004 and the M.Eng. degree from LaTrobe University, Bundoora, Australia, in 2008. He has received his Ph.D. degree in the Electronics Engineering Department, LaTrobe University. He is currently working as Senior Director of Innovation, Data & Analytics at Transport Canberra & City Service directorate of ACT Government. He is responsible for implementation of data management practices and delivering analytics functions to the internal business units to help them achieve organisational goals. His interests are in the areas of data management, open data, analytics and data strategy.

Dr Jessie Nghiem is currently working as a Senior Data Scientist at Energy Safe Victoria, a state regulator for electricity and gas safety. Jessie’s reason to get up and work every day is to make the world a safer place.

Jessie holds a PhD in Computer Science and has 15+ years experience in the data analytics field for various academics, government and commercial organisations.

Joe Walshe is a data analyst at the ACT Government’s Data Analytics Centre, working across government to transform the way data is used, perceived, and valued through analytics, automation and visualisation.

As part of this mission Joe is fighting a somewhat successful crusade against pie charts, and losing another against spreadsheets.

Joe holds a PhD in experimental nuclear physics from the University of Birmingham, which comes in useful more often than you’d think.

Paul Hodge is a Data Visualisation University Lecturer and Corporate Educator with a passion for exploring the intersection between data, design, and storytelling. By elevating everyone’s potential to engage, inform, and leverage design principles, Paul believes that we all have the ability to inspire people and share our insights in ways that can improve the world and make it a more interesting place to live in.

Leveraging his entrepreneurial spirit and drawing on a blend of business acumen and deep technical experience, Paul continues to work closely with C-level executive management, while bringing together business, technical and analytic teams to improve their productivity and achieve outstanding business outcomes.