Speakers
Keynote Speaker Biographies
Adam Elliot
A naturally gifted, engaging and entertaining communicator, Adam Elliot shares his life story of hard work, persistence, patience and determination to finally win an Academy Award, eclipsing the work of Hollywood giants, Disney, Pixar and the Fox Studios. His universal and very funny story is not only thoroughly entertaining but incredibly inspiring and motivating. He has spoken to hundreds of groups around the world, from Coca-Cola to his local library and has worked with legendary actors as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Geoffrey Rush, Eric Bana, Toni Collette, Barry Humphries and even Molly Meldrum!
Amantha Imber
Dr Amantha Imber is the founder of Inventium, an international creativity and innovation company that grew out of her desire to counter “fluff” – the dubious advice she would regularly encounter. Amantha is author of “The Creativity Formula: 50 scientifically proven creativity boosters for work and for life”.
Amantha has a doctorate in organisational psychology, which means she brings a scientific yet highly practical approach to creative thinking and innovation. Inventium’s tools and techniques have been tested in real world and lab studies. They are based on scientific theories that have been proven time and time again to significantly enhance creative thinking and innovation.
Amantha is a regular media commentator on creativity and innovation, and has appeared on Today, Mornings with Kerri-Anne, Insight, and ABC Radio. She writes a regular column on science-based innovation for Fast Thinking, is an in-demand conference speaker around the world on creativity and has helped literally thousands of people solve problems more creatively and as a result, bring better innovations to market.
Through Inventium, Amantha has worked with clients across Australia, UK, United States, Europe, New Zealand and Africa, including LEGO, Kimberly-Clark, Ogilvy + Mather, BP, Deloitte, Vodafone, and Fosters. Prior to Inventium, Amantha was a consumer psychologist working for multinational advertising agencies.
Amantha had an international record deal for her debut album Like Samantha without the S, prays to the God of Kevin Spacey and claims to have once been freakishly good at table tennis.
Janet Matton
Janet Matton has been in the IT industry with IBM for 30 years.
Since joining IBM, Janet has held a variety of positions in the areas of sales, marketing, technical management, and services. She has held key roles in Australia, Southeast Asia, the United States, Japan, China and Europe. Janet spent 7 years working for IBM in the USA and in Europe, returning to Australia in 2002.
She relocated to Japan in February 2006 to take on the role of Vice President of Sales Operations for Asia Pacific. With the transfer of the IBM Asia Pacific HQ from Japan to Shanghai in the 4th quarter of 2007, Janet relocated to Shanghai. Janet returned to Melbourne, Australia in March 2009, to assume the role of VP, Sales Enablement for IBM Australia / New Zealand. In December 2009, Janet’s role was expanded to include responsibility for A/NZ Sales Operations.
In the role of Vice President, Sales Operations & Enablement, Janet is responsible for the successful integration of the sales activities needed to support and enable the growth of the IBM business within Australia and New Zealand. She acts as a 2IC to the General Manager of IBM in Australia and New Zealand.
Janet brings a wealth of experience with respect to the evolution of the IT industry and IBM’s role within it. She is passionate that organisations of the future need to tap into a diverse portfolio of skills and capabilities to be able to identify and execute the changes that are needed for survival and growth.
Professor John Hattie
John Hattie is Professor of Education at The University of Auckland. His areas of interest are measurement models and their applications to educational problems, including item response models, structural equation modelling, measurement theory, and meta-analysis. Substantive areas of research include study skills, performance indicators and evaluation, self-concept, models of teaching and learning, and educational psychology.
He is currently director of the Visible Learning Lab at Auckland University.
Chief moderator of the Performance Based Research Fund, editor of the International Journal of Testing, associate editor of British Journal of Educational Psychology, and is part-time cricket coach and umpire. He has supervised more than $30m in research grants, has published over 200 papers, 200 conference papers, and supervised close to 200 thesis
students.
Mark Treadwell
Mark is an independent consultant. He has presented keynote addresses to numerous national and international conferences including The International Confederation of Principals (2007), The 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong (2008) and the Irish Principals Association (2007); Australasian Distance Education conference (2009); International Thinking Conference (KL 2009); NSW Secondary Principals conference (20009); The International Science & Technology Educators Conference (2010). Mark was chosen as the ACEL Australian Travelling Scholar for 2008. Mark is also a director of Dataview; a software development company working on creating 21st C Online Learning Environments. His recently released books include “Whatever!: School v2.0” and “Whatever Next!: The Global Curriculum”. The third text in this series; “Whatever! Were we Thinking?” will be released in April 2010.
The theme for Mark’s talks is on the future of education as we move into the second decade of the 21st century and how the Global Paradigm shift in Learning is changing the very purpose of education and this, coupled with advances in our knowledge of how the brain learns via the interplay between astrocytes and neurons has dramatically changed our understanding of how learners can learn more effectively and efficiently. The implications of both these streams of understanding have resulted in entirely new approaches to teaching and learning, curriculum design and the technology environments that facilitate effective learning.
Rob Redenbach
Rob Redenbach is the author of Waveman – From Backstreets to Baghdad and Beyond. Rob holds postgraduate qualifications in (counter)terrorism, safety and security from the Australian Graduate School of Policing – Australia's leading provider of postgraduate higher education award programs for members of policing and related services.
A former member of the Australian Defence Force, Rob's practical experience includes managing a security company in Papua New Guinea, working with the bodyguard team of Nelson Mandela, teaching his own system of self-defence to the American FBI and British special forces and providing security services to aid-workers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Based on the Gold Coast, Rob regularly presents to business groups nationally and internationally and has been featured in mediums as diverse as the Australian Financial Review, the journal of The American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers and Virgin Blue's in-flight magazine.
Brett Rutledge (MC)
With years of business consulting and management behind him, Brett knows that the success of any event rests heavily on the effort and dedication of the person fronting it.
As an MC, Brett uses his intelligence to impeccably link the program together and his wit and comic talent to keep the audience thoroughly enthralled. As a Facilitator, Brett controls and encourages his charges with an insightful humour that brings out the very best of any panel or discussion.
Billed as the most fun you will ever have being serious, Brett is the MC/Facilitator of choice for many of Australia’s biggest and brightest organisations.
|
