Pearcey

2020 Pearcey Oration

2020 Pearcey Oration is being held on Wednesday 2 September 2020 and will follow the presentation of the Victorian State Entrepreneur Award. These two events are sponsored by the Victorian Government and form key elements of the Digital Innovation Festival (DIF) in its fifth year of celebration of Victoria's tech community. The 2020 Pearcey Oration will explore the very pertinent topic of Resilience, specifically: How do we address our resilience and preparedness in this age of mistrust?

The Oration will be delivered by John Blackburn AO, Air Vice-Marshal (Retd) and Chair of The Institute for Integrated Economic Research (IIER). John is a consultant in the field of Defence and National Security. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW, the Institute For Regional Security, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation and the Australian Institute of Energy. He has extensive experience across the fields of strategy, policy, planning, operational command, capability development and material acquisition. He recently featured as a panellist on the 29 July 2020 Pearcey Conversation on-line seminar entitled "The role of the ICT Community in the future resilience and self-reliance of Australia".

This event will be held on-line and one can register here https://na.eventscloud.com/ereg/index.php?eventid=565777&

Conversations

The Pearcey Foundation is holding an ongoing series of on-line seminars we have called "Conversations". They are being held on the last Wednesday of each month. The August Edition is entitled

"Tertiary Computer Science - preparing future leaders?"  Wednesday 26 August 2020; 5:00-6:00pm AEST

Computer science involves the theory and design behind the intelligent systems that transform the way we live, work and communicate. Although the fundamentals of the discipline do not change, the range of applications of ICT, across all aspects of society, is constantly expanding and changing. How do we currently prepare students at university for the work they may undertake in the future? Are past experiences relevant in planning and presenting courses today?Contributors include:

• Professor Katrina Falkner, Interim Executive Dean, Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, The University of Adelaide
• Professor Elanor Huntington, Dean of Engineering and Computer Science, Australian National University
• Alan Noble, Founder, AusOcean

To register please go to https://heritage.pearcey.org.au/events/

The most recent Conversation (July 2020) was entitled: The Role of the ICT community in the future resilience and self-reliance of Australia. It canvassed the broader role of technology in our society and our economy, the choices we need to make, the directions/objectives towards which we should be moving and the emphasis we should have for sustained success. You can view the Seminar on the Pearcey Foundation's YouTube channel

Pearcey State Entrepreneur Awards

Nominations are being called for all states NOW. Please send any nominations to admin@pearcey.org.au. Of course some events will be live and in usual format but some will be virtual.

• The Queensland Award will be held on Tuesday evening 6th October 2020 at the St Lucia Golf Club, Hillstone, as we did in 2019. Sponsors are IceMedia and TechOne for which we are extraordinarily grateful
• The Victoria Award will be held during the 2020 DIF scheduled for 24th Aug through 5 Sep. It will be a virtual event given current lock down in Melbourne and sponsored by the Victorian Government. The Vic Award will be presented on Wed 2 September
• ACT will be in October and will be held at a Canberra restaurant as we did in 2019. Again we are delighted that the ACT Government is sponsoring the Award as they have done over many years
• The NSW State Award is set for  Tuesday 13 October between 5.00-6.00 PM at the Sydney Start-Up Hub. It will follow the October Conversation entitled "Celebrating Women's contribution to Australia's computing industry" - to be held on Ava Lovelace Day! Tuesday 13 October 2020; 1.00pm - 5.00pm AEST with the support of the Tech Girls Movement Foundation
• Planning is proceeding for Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. More details soon

2020 Pearcey Medal

2020 Pearcey Medal, Hall of Fame and National Entrepreneur of the Year Awards will be presented on Thursday 19 November 2020; 6:00pm - 9:30pm. All being well it will be a dinner event at a venue to be announced soon and will include a prominent Guest Speaker.

Initiatives

2020 has certainly been a remarkable year with the onset of the pandemic. The members of the Pearcey Foundation felt it important that the tech sector show thought leadership by debating the pros and cons of the CovidSAFE app launched by our Federal Government in late April 2020. To this end, we have published two papers and held a public zoom seminar on the app and its ramifications for our community. Below are references to these activities in detail. No one could have foreseen the incredible disruption we are all experiencing in 2020 but, as one of our CovidSAFE speakers commented, this app is all about TRUST; TRUST in government in particular. He offered a definition: Trust is Integrity plus transparency over time.

Additionally we have launched our History of the Australian ICT industry initiative (last November 2019). We have assembled a great team of advisors, led by Dr Peter Thorne, all of whom are working with our author Graeme Philipson to curate a wonderful living document. The book is making great progress.

More details on all events, as well as the Book, are available on our Heritage website https://heritage.pearcey.org.au/events/