InnovationAus Podcast

Karen Dewey had a long and successful career as an executive producer in commercial television, including lengthy stints as Head of Reality and Factual at Nine Network Australia and ITV Studios, before jumping out into StartupLand as co-founder and CEO of Lumi.Media. It’s platform software for the global TV production industry, and it’s coming out of Australia. In this episode of The Commercial Disco, she talks to James Riley about the exhilarating ride.

Australia’s Ambassador to the United States arrived in Washington in February 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading across the world. In this interview he talks about a US economy that is now roaring back to life and the opportunities this presents for Australian companies. He also charts the progress of talks on a proposed Australia-US Digital Economy Trade Agreement.

The low number of women in STEM occupations is “a national emergency”, according to the chairman of Industry Innovation and Science Australia, Andrew Stevens, who is also a member of Champions of Change, a group of CEOs and company directors working to achieve gender equality. 

He recently spoke to InnovationAus CEO and publisher, Corrie McLeod, and Dominique Fisher, co-founder and CEO of Paddl Co, off the back of the Paddl Impact Accelerator Program, sponsored by Western Sydney University, with InnovationAus as the media partner and the Western National Innovation Games funded by the Australian Government and delivered by Paddl Co.

There is a need for new policy structures and funding to stimulate innovation across the economy, especially during the COVID recovery period. In this episode of the Commercial Disco, ANDHealth Chief Executive Bronwyn Le Grice and Cicada Innovations CEO Sally-Ann Williams discuss Australia’s innovation ecosystem – and lament the growth of ‘innovation theatre’. Now is the time urgency, they say.

The National Archives of Australia is a literally a national treasure, the central store of the story of Australia and its people. In this episode of the Commercial Disco, James Riley talks to the archives’ Director-General David Fricker about the technology challenges of maintaining access to material stored on ageing data formats – and the significant budgetary pressures that this puts on the institution.

InnovationAus’ Budget Insider returns online, where the team examine treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s budget and how it could affect our industry. This friendly and frank discussion is hosted by the InnovationAus team; Publisher Corrie McLeod, Editorial Director James Riley and Senior Reporter Denham Sadler. This year our expert industry guests include: Sarah Pearson, Non Executive Director and Investment Director, Nick Therkelsen-Terry, CEO and CoFounder of Max Kelsen and Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.

In this episode of the Commercial Disco, James Riley talks to one of Australia’s foremost cyber security commentators and the CEO of the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, Rachael Falk about building sovereign capability; what makes a successful research collaboration between government, industry and research institutions; creating innovative solutions for the ever-evolving problems and developing great IP.

Max Kelsen is one of a growing breed of fast-growing Australian AI companies. In this episode of the Commercial Disco, James Riley talks to Max Kelsen chief executive Nick Therkelsen-Terry about the growth opportunities for the software sector – and the need to governments to better target industry policy.

InnovationAus Publisher Corrie McLeod spoke with expert guests; Carrick Ryan, Former Australian Federal Agent and Political Commentator; Marie Johnson, CEO of The Centre for Digital Business and Han Aulby, Executive Director of The Centre for Public Integrity on Transparency in Government as part of InnovationAus’ own Public Interest Series.

The discussion covered a wide range of issues on how data intelligence could be used in the private sector to enable transparency in government and how data intelligence can be applied to the operation of the public sector.

In this episode of The InnovationAus Podcast, we talk to Dane Eldridge, the founder and chief executive of Sydney-based software development and digital transformation specialists 4mation.

In a market already suffering significant shortages of digital skills, Mr Eldridge says ‘Brand Australia’ should use its positive handling of the COVID pandemic to attract the best and brightest talent from overseas. We were already a lifestyle superpower he says, and now we’re even more attractive.