Sally-Ann Williams
CEO, Cicada Innovations

Sally-Ann Williams is the CEO of Cicada Innovations, Australia’s home of Deep Tech.  Cicada Innovations unlocks the power to create the industries and jobs of the future addressing some of the most pressing global issues that face our world today.

Prior to joining Cicada Innovations, Sally-Ann was an Executive Program Manager at Google Australia for 12 years where she was responsible for leading Google’s efforts in CS and STEM education & outreach (K-12), research collaborations with universities and entrepreneurship and startup engagement.

Sally-Ann has been involved in driving national engagement and change strategies in innovation & entrepreneurship, Computer Science and STEM education including contributing to the COAG STEM Partnership Forum and the foundation of StartupAUS, a non-profit with a mission to transform Australia through technology entrepreneurship.

Sally-Ann is an experienced Non-Executive Board member currently serving on the boards of Fishburners and World Vision Australia.  She is a mentor in the Startmate program and has served as an advisor and mentor to several industry and university incubators & accelerators.

Professor Tanya Monro FAA FTSE FOSA FAIP
Chief Defence Scientist, Department of Defence Science and Technology

Professor Tanya Monro commenced as Chief Defence Scientist in March 2019. Professor Monro was previously Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and Innovation and an ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow at the University of South Australia.

Professor Monro was the inaugural Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) from 2008 to 2014 and was also the inaugural Director for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP) at the University of Adelaide. Her research is in the field of photonics, with a focus on sensing, lasers and new classes of optical fibres. Professor Monro obtained her PhD in physics in 1998 from The University of Sydney, for which she was awarded the Bragg Gold Medal for the best Physics PhD in Australia. In 2000, she received a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton in the UK, and is also an inaugural Bragg Fellow of the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus).

Professor Monro is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (AAS), the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP). She is member of the Board of the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the South Australian Economic Advisory Council. Her awards include: the Prime Minister's Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year (2008), South Australian Scientist of the Year (2010), South Australia's Australian of the Year (2011), and the Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research (2015) and she is the 2019 SA winner of the Australian Award for Excellence in Women’s Leadership.

 
Panel Speakers

Will Charles
Executive Director Commercialisation, UniServices


Will Charles has been General Manager Commercialisation since 2005. During this time UniServices has transacted over 165 licensing deals, started 30 companies and raised over $50 million in venture and seed funding for these companies, and has successfully exited a number of these.

He set up the TransTasman Commercialisation Fund, a A$30 million seed fund with four Australian Universities and sat on the Investment Committee of the fund.  He is a director of a number of start-up companies.  He also set up and is responsible for the direction of Return on Science which is part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Economic Development’s Commercialisation Partner Network. He has been a speaker at a number of international Technology Transfer events including the Association of Technology Managers in the US (AUTM) and BioEurope.

Previously, Will has had extensive senior commercial experience in businesses in Europe, Asia and New Zealand where he has held executive positions at a number of companies including Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Celltech and Wolters Kluwer.

Angela Coble
Director, Business Technology, Johnson & Johnson

Angela Coble is a senior ICT leader and internationally published author, with experience in healthcare, utilities and finance. Ange is passionate about using technology to improve wellness in the community by powering preventative, remote and pre- and post-operative in home care solutions.

Her more than 20 years of leadership experience include senior positions within the Medical Devices Healthcare industry in Security and Technology and Electricity Supply industry, including Group Manager Business Planning Infrastructure Operations for NSW. Ange has an MBA from USQ, and a Bachelor of Business from USQ. She gained her Certification as an Information Security Manager from ISACA and qualified in Information Security Risk Management at the SANS institute. Ange holds qualifications across various domains, has embarked on her PhD (leadership in tech & impact of Women in tech) and is an Advisory Board Member with CEC (IDG company), regularly contributes to publications and events such as CeBIT, Women InTech and emerging technology start-up advisory’s.

Marthe D’Ombrain PhD GCALL
Director, Research Innovation, Research, CSL, Bio21 Institute


Marthe D’Ombrain, as the Director of Research Innovation at CSL, plays a key role in the identification and integration of new technology and project opportunities into CSL’s global Research portfolio and leads efforts to establish and strengthen key external collaborative partnerships. Marthe has a PhD in immunology and parasitology from the University of Melbourne, which she undertook at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the University of Melbourne. Marthe undertook postdoctoral studies at the Université de Lausanne and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

Martin Duursma

Partner, Main Sequence Ventures

Martin Duursma is a Partner at Main Sequence Ventures.  Martin has over 25 years’ experience as a Senior Executive, Technologist, Business Founder, Angel Investor and Mentor both in Australia and the US. Prior to joining Main Sequence Martin was a senior executive with a range of global responsibilities at Citrix.  Martin joined Citrix in 1997 when it acquired Datapac Australasia, a company which he co-founded. While at Citrix Martin started and built the company's research arm, Citrix Labs, started and led the CTO Council and CTO function and also started the Citrix Accelerator and led the investment in over 30 new companies.   As VP and head of the Global Technology Office, Martin led due diligence in over 60 transactions totalling $2.5B in value.

Martin continues to be active as an angel investor as well as in various advisor and mentor roles at Macquarie University, Sydney University and ON, Australia’s national science technology accelerator. Martin holds a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Sydney University.

Professor Gary Hogan AM
Executive Director, APR.intern


Professor Gary Hogan joined the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) as Executive Director of its national PhD internship program, APR.Intern, in 2018 and is responsible for leading stakeholder engagement and corporate relations with government, universities and industry partners.

A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Gary spent more than 30 years in the Australian Defence Force – most notably as Head of Military Intelligence and Director-General Scientific and Technical Analysis, retiring with the rank of Brigadier-General.

Gary has held executive and advisory positions at KPMG, RMIT, UNSW and the Victorian Government and is currently an Enterprise Professor at the University of Melbourne. Gary holds a First Class Honours degree in History (UNSW), a Master of Strategic Studies (UNSW) and is fluent in Mandarin, Vietnamese and Bahasa Indonesia. Gary is passionate about APR.Intern’s ambition to transform the futures and career trajectories of PhD students across Australia, not to mention the innovation dividends that will be delivered to the Program’s industry partners.

Seumas McCroskery
Commercialisation Manager, Kiwi Innovation Network (KiwiNet)


Seumas McCroskery is a Commercialisation Manager at Kiwi Innovation Network (KiwiNet). KiwiNet is New Zealand’s network of public research organisations, working together to transform scientific discoveries into marketable products and services. Core to his role is bridging support between the entrepreneurial researcher to the commercialisation professional and into the private sector. His personal vision is increasing the number of entrepreneurial researchers with the core skills and confidence to deliver positive and fundamental changes to the world through their amazing ideas tackling solutions to challenges. Having worked on multiple initiatives over the years, he is keen at KCA to discuss lessons learnt, ongoing successes and future programs to keep the snowball of success growing.

Parnos Munyard
Director, Advocacy and Law Reform, Australian Competition & Consumer Commission


Parnos Munyard currently leads the Advocacy and Law Reform team. Broadly speaking, his role is to ensure that the Competition and Consumer Act including the Australian Consumer Law is able to address anti-competitive conduct and consumer harm effectively. This includes engaging with internal and external stakeholders about forthcoming amendments and/or the need for future change.

This is Parnos’ 11^th year at the ACCC. He spent the first half of his time in the Enforcement Division, investigating and litigating both competition and consumer matters. He then moved to merger investigations branch where he reviewed prospective mergers for competition concerns. He then moved to the ACCC’s International team where he was responsible for the international engagement on competition issues in particular with the International Competition Network (ICN) and the OECD competition committee.

Ian Nisbet BSc, PhD
Director & Founder, Cartherics Pty Ltd



Ian Nisbet has over 30 years of product development, business development and project management experience in the biotechnology sector at an executive or board level in both Australian and the US.  He was project leader for two FDA-approved oncology drugs, VELCADE^® and SYNRIBO.

Ian is a co-founder of Cartherics Pty Ltd, a developer of cellular therapies for the treatment of cancer, and serves as its Corporate Advisor.  He is CEO of Cancure Ltd, an oncology development company, and Chair of VivaZome Pty Ltd, a company developing exosome treatments for ischemic diseases.  He also acts as a director or advisor to several Australian and US biotechnology companies. 

Ian received his BSc from the University of Melbourne and his PhD in molecular biology from Monash University.  He is also a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Melbourne Business School.






Simon Potter
Principal, Chemical / Life Sciences Leader Australia, Spruson & Ferguson

Simon Potter is an experienced patent attorney specialising in biotechnology. As head of Spruson & Ferguson’s Chemical/Life Sciences team in Australia, he assists clients in all aspects of patent practice including drafting, prosecution, oppositions, patentability/validity/freedom to operate opinions, and portfolio strategy/management. He has drafted and successfully managed sizeable patent portfolios for a number of prominent Australian biotechnology companies and works closely with several leading Australian universities.

 
Simon has research experience in molecular biology, immunology and genetics. After graduating from the University of Sydney with a university medal, he gained a PhD for research on HIV antiretroviral drug resistance at the Westmead Millennium Institute. Simon also held a postdoctoral research position at the Pasteur Institute as a CJ Martin Postdoctoral Fellowship recipient.

Simon is a fellow of The Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of Australia (IPTA), and a member of The Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand (IPSANZ).

Russel Rankin
Director & Founder, Food Innovation Partners Pty Ltd


Russel Rankin has more than thirty years’ experience in the food and beverage industry in various senior commercial and research positions. Russel has an inherent ability to connect companies, research organisations, financial institutions and Government and understands how to manage the innovation process and the steps required to commercialise innovative ideas.

Currently Russel is Director and Founder of Food Innovation Partners Pty Ltd, a company that makes the connections between commercial companies, research organisations, Governments, Finance providers, marketing and Industry Bodies. Russel is currently Board Member of the Australian Research Council’s Robotics Vision Centre of Excellent; Member of SA Government’s Advisory and Assessment Board for their Advanced Food Manufacturing program; Director of The Food Market Company (TFMC); Director of Freshly & Co; Director of The Beauty Drink Company and Member of the Advisory Board to KFSU Pty Ltd, a company making dietary fibre from sugar cane.

Dr Erin Rayment, RTTP FAICD
Director, Office of Research Development, Research and Innovation Division, University of Southern Queensland
Chair, Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia (KCA) Ltd

Dr Erin Rayment is the Director of the Office of Research Development at the University of Southern Queensland. Prior to USQ, Erin was responsible for commercialisation at qutbluebox and large-scale collaborative research projects for Griffith University. Erin began her career as a biomedical scientist and worked on the UK 'Regenerative Medicine - A New Industry' Grand Challenge. She has a Bachelor of Biotechnology Innovation with Honours, a PhD in tissue engineering, is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional. Erin is currently Chair of Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia and a Director of the Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation Ltd.

Richard Taube
Australia Manager, University Programs, Research and Advanced Engineering, Ford



Richard Taube is a Mechanical Engineer and has worked in the Automotive industry in Australia since 1994. His Postgraduate Research was in the field of Sheetmetal Stampings Optimisation and he has been active in BIW structures design, development and testing of the Ford Territory, Falcon and T6 Ranger since 1999.

He currently manages the collaborative University Research Projects for Ford of Australia Pty Ltd and acts in a technical capacity for the BIW Product Development teams. He has an ongoing interest in applied research and collaboration between industry and research schools as well as advanced BIW structures planning, development and cost optimisation.

More speakers coming soon.