2012 Pearcey Medal
Dr Mal Bryce AO, 2012 Pearcey Medallist, passed away at home in Perth Western Australia on 4th March 2018. Dr Bryce was a former WA deputy premier and has been remembered as "ahead of his time and a champion of innovation and technology" after the long-serving Labor stalwart died at the age of 74. Mal was accorded a State Funeral and a Memorial Service on Friday 13th April 2018 at the Curtin University Stadium in Perth Western Australia. A copy of the program for that service can be seen here.
Dr Bryce was presented the 2012 Pearcey Medal at a gala dinner in Melbourne on the 9th August 2012 attended by some 800 guests. The award was made as part of the 2012 iAwards event and was presented by Mr Len Rust, a member of the Pearcey Foundation Executive Committee.
For those unable to attend this presentation, his inspirational 'off the cuff' acceptance speech was most memorable and brought the audience to its feet. Here is a video of it - 2012 Pearcey Medal Speech
Mal Bryce was honoured by WAITTA (the WA IT and Telecommunications Awards) in 2002 as the "WAITTA Achiever of the Year".
Dr Mal Bryce Vale 2018
Dr Bryce has been a champion of the Australian ICT industry and profession since the late 1970's. His career over 40 years as a company director, corporate manager, senior consultant and cabinet minister in the 1980's, focussed on developing companies, communities and public policy to harness the power of ICT. He established Australia's first Government Department of Computing and Information Technology, the WA Technology Park which included incubators for start-up ICT companies, and legislated to establish the WA Technology and Industry Development Act.
Throughout the 1990s Mal was a leading Australian pioneer in the development of the Internet Industry and the application of the Internet to business, government agencies and communities. He was the architect of Australia's first (and one of the world's first) Internet enabled online communities in Ipswich, Queensland (1993) and he led the team that implemented Australia's first community driven eCommerce Project. His book "Australia's First Online Community" published in 2010 is a case study in IT led Economic Development.
In his role as Chairman of iVEC and Chairman of the Pawsey Supercomputer Project, Mal has been heavily involved in developing the Supercomputing and eResearch Infrastructure components of the Australian ICT sector. iVEC is a keystone of Australia's successful bid for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) research project.
