The Pearcey Foundation had a busy year in 2020. Highlights include our National and State Awards, the Pearcey Oration and our monthly "Conversations" webinars on many areas important to Australia's ICT policy, heritage, and innovations.
This is a remarkable book. It is frank, insightful and at times hard hitting.
It traces the life, loves and career path, in UK and Australia, of a courageous and very competent woman from the earliest days of the computer age, through to the current times.
Nobody much remembers it now, but 40 years ago Australia built one of the world’s largest computer networks. In 1981 Australia’s Department of Social Security (DSS) began planning an ambitious network to connect all of its 210 Australian offices in real time.
The 2020 WA Pearcey Entrepreneur Award recipient is Greg Riebe, co-founder of Entrepreneurs in Residence. This Award was part the 29th WAITTA Incite Honorary Awards announced on Wednesday 25 November 2020.
Sydney Uni's Nano Centre in Department of Physics was awarded the 2020 Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in protecting Australia. By harnessing the delicate interaction between light and sound, Professor Ben Eggleton and his team have produced a microchip that provides a unique advantage for defence platforms.
Dr Cathy Foley AO, currently CSIRO Chief Scientist, and from December 2020, will become Chief Scientist of Australia. Cathy has made distinguished contributions to the understanding of superconducting materials and to the development of devices using superconductors for a number of applications including to detect magnetic fields and locate valuable deposits of minerals.
In a widely attended Pearcey virtual event, Jamila Gordon received the 2020 NSW Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Jamila is the CEO and founder of Lumachain, a technology platform using AI, IoT and blockchain to bring transparency to global supply chains, benefitting producers, enterprises and consumers. Jamila was presented with her award by 2014 Pearcey Medallist and inaugural Ada Lovelace Medallist Professor Mary O'Kane.
Recognising the amazing contributions of female Australians to the digital age. Held on Ada Lovelace Day and supported by the Tech Girls Movement Foundation.
So you’ve decided to become an IT professional when you grow up? Good choice! You’ve already discovered the satisfaction of getting a program to work – that will continue to excite you for the rest of your life. You’ll also find that debugging the things that don’t work is equally rewarding.
This is an extract from Ann Moffatt’s book, The IT Girl, which is to be published in November 2020.
This graduation season, we are proud to announce that Skaidrite Darius has received an honorary doctorate from the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science.
From the start she thrived on this new technology that used abstract logic, and still relishes looking back at those early,
adventurous days with all card systems and low-level programming languages.
Canberra, Australia - 22 September 2020 - The Pearcey Foundation today announced Shane Hill, founder of Skoolbo as this year's recipient of the ACT Chief Minister's Pearcey Entrepreneur Award. The award was presented by Senator (retd) Kate Lundy representing the ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr at the Pearcey Round Table 2020 event in Canberra.
Following the invention and development of the transistor in the late1940’s in the USA, the CSIRO began research into semiconductors.
On August 9th the Pearcey Foundation hosted a Conversation on the Role of the ICT Community in the Future Resilience and Self-reliance of Australia.
Sixty years ago Australians designed and built two of the first transistorised computers called SNOCOM and CIRRUS. They were very advanced for their era.
Terry Cutler (1948-2020) FATSE PhD Econ History (UNSW), BA History (Melb Uni), passed away on 3 July in Melbourne. Terry was a remarkable contributor to the ICT sector. During 2008 he chaired the Australian Government's Review of the National Innovation System which culminated in the Report, Venturous Australia.
Barbara Ainsworth, Monash Museum of Computing History, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University.
Guest Blog by Sonja Bernhardt OAM
