2023

Peter Maynard has made a distinguished contribution to ICT by developing the first useable, understandable, and non-technical hybrid cyber security framework designed specifically for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs), enabling improved security practices among SMBs in Australia at a time when this was a significant national risk. This framework was adopted as the ISO/IEC TS 27110:2021 standard several years later. He co-authored Australia’s first multi-level cyber security Certification process specifically for SMEs, for which the certification is offered online via one of the many innovative companies Peter has founded. He also holds patents and provisional patents in this area. He is an Industry Fellow at the University of Queensland, helping to transition academic research and discovery into usable practice, and provides his expertise as a member of the cyber risk leadership committees for the Australian Computer Society (ACS), Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), and the Tech Council of Australia.

2023

Paul Gampe has made a distinguished contribution to ICT by creating opportunities for employment and skills in the latest high technology hardware and software platforms, and by proving that Australia can be globally competitive in these areas with awareness, education, and support in emerging technologies. He is credited with establishing one of the three non-US based Red Hat Research facilities in Australia and transferring the Internet address registry (APNIC) for the Asia-Pacific region to Brisbane. His work with Standards Australia in establishing the use of ISO/IEC 27001 for data centres in Australia played an important role in the 2020 Covid epidemic, and he has since successfully expanded this work into using software interconnectivity methodologies globally. He has served on boards and committees for the Open-Source Industry Australia, the Linux Foundation, CoderDojo, and the IT/MM advisory board for the University of Queensland, and has played a significant role supporting young entrepreneurs as Chair of the Queensland Pearcey Foundation.

2023

Professor Alan Liew has made a distinguished contribution to ICT by advancing fundamental knowledge in Computer Science, particularly in the field of computer intelligence with pioneering work in novel unsupervised learning that led to a US patent and later adoption by industry. He is recognised worldwide for his academic scholarship but also as a researcher who encourages the best from his colleagues and allows them to develop and shine in their own right. This leadership led to a significant uplift in the ranking of the Computer Science discipline when he was Deputy Head of School (Research) at Griffith University and hence the ability to attract grants and researchers to the discipline. He has not only contributed to the profession as an academic but also as a members of Standards Australia AI committees, by promoting IT to high school students and helping ACS Queensland with its Gold Coast chapter activities.

2023

Geoff Augutis has made a distinguished contribution of ICT via his leadership in volunteering, specifically with his advocacy and practical programs to ensure a high standard of ICT education in schools and his work to ensure that areas in regional Queensland have access to ICT training and technology. His work, both in his professional life and volunteer activities, is credited with making a significant contribution to the growth of the ICT industry in Queensland. He has served on the reference and Advisory Boards of both CQU and QUT universities, as well as for the Queensland government and CSIRO. He is an active volunteer for ACS, serving as Chair for the ACS Bundaberg chapter, and is an accredited columnist on ICT matters for the Bundaberg press. His voluntary work has made possible the donation of over 1000 used computers that are repurposed for those in need in the community.

2023

John O’Callaghan has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in Australia through his very early recognition of the potential of high-performance computing (HPC), in particular for vision and image processing; his collaborative and successful leadership of research teams developing the application of HPC to the areas of remote sensing, mapping and Geographic Information Systems; and his ability and drive that motivated governments, funding agencies and universities to recognise HPC's strategic nature. He played a pivotal role in the establishment, management and success of Australia’s first HPC network which has evolved into the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) and the National Computer Infrastructure (NCI) and makes HPC facilities available to Australian research organisations. Much of the strategically important success from collaborations between universities, government, researchers and commercial enterprise in HPC is attributed to the foundations created by his work. He has also encouraged young Australians through his support of the Olympiad program.

2023

Marissa Shipley has made a distinguished contribution to ICT as an active trailblazer for the important contributions that neurodiverse people make to the profession. She has demonstrated this with a stellar career in ERP security and governance, a discipline in which she has world renown, but also by publicly sharing her journey to overcome the challenges that she has faced. She has worked with a wide variety of organisations where both her technical and leadership abilities, together with her ability to successfully manage unconscious bias, has allowed her to provide concrete examples to encourage and motivate others, so that they may follow more easily. She is actively involved in a number of industry groups that foster the development and support of women in the ICT industry and Neurodiversity in Technology, including the Girls in Schools Program, Women in Tech, She Leads Tech, Women in IT, and the QUT Mentor initiatives.

2023

Sharon Singh has made a distinguished contribution to ICT through her evidence-driven advocacy, which has led to ground breaking improvements in ICT and STEM education in Australia, and internationally. Her work has been incorporated in the IFIP Zanzibar Declaration, and is found in digital curricula across the world. She discerned the problems in ICT and STEM curricula, particularly for girls, and designed and innovatively tested and proved the suggested improvements. This enabled her to provide data that showed when and how the suggested changes worked. Under her leadership, the ACS ICT Educator’s Committee commissioned the first ever survey of ICT education in Australian schools; work that has provided such valuable data to government, educators and policy makers, that such surveys will continue. Her status as a successful innovator is illustrated in the award-winning STEM Design Centre at St John’s Anglican College, which is a model now used by schools globally.

2023

Dr Vikram Sharma has made a distinguished contribution to Australian ICT both as an outstanding researcher in the evolving field of security defences in a quantum computing environment but also from the notable achievement of commercialising his research such that the IP, associated technology and skilled employment stays in Australia. Dr Sharma is one of the few Australians to have his name on several patents in ICT related subjects and, as a result of his leadership and technical ability, has ensured that his active research into the quantum computing security results in practical and useful implementations. He has contributed significantly to government consultations on cyber security and is a member of the National Quantum Advisory Committee. In academia he has developed partnerships with the Centre for Excellence in Quantum Computing and Communication Technology, the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, The Australian National University, The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, the University of Newcastle and the University of Queensland.

2023

Christopher Jeffery has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in Australia by making it possible for marginalised groups in our society to access and use ICT technology successfully. He has used his skills across ICT hardware and software platforms on a voluntary and pro bono basis to assist a wide variety of such groups, including remote and isolated communities, the Syrian Mosaic Community in Brisbane, menALIVE Ministries, the Invictus Community College that supports disengaged and disadvantaged youth, and a number of Seniors groups. He is particularly recognised for his work in upskilling educators in both the secondary and VET (Vocational Education and Training) sectors enabling them to maintain industry currency and to provide and deliver authentic learning experiences to their students. He is involved in the community as a judge for awards, a member of ACS course accreditation panels, mentoring students, and presenting on ‘staying safe online’.

2023

Distinguished Professor Jie Lu has made a hugely significant contribution to Australian ICT by developing Machine Learning and Fuzzy Systems algorithms such that they can be used on the disparate and evolving data that are found in real world applications. Her ground-breaking ‘fuzzy latent feature’ can work out which of several sources of data is the best to use to reach specified outcomes and also react to the changes that often occur in the data over time. This is useful in applications that make predictions based on conflicting and incomplete data sets such as is often found in streamed data. Her methods have been successful commercialised and used in applications ranging from predicting the occupancy of train carriages, business strategy success, telecommunication loads, mortality rates and recently, to analysing genome sequences. Distinguished Professor Jie Lu is renowned for her leadership in research and for her activities as a role model to women in STEM.

2023

Professor Dian Tjondronegoro has made a distinguished contribution to the ICT industry as a recognised expert in transdisciplinary research in artificial intelligence, information systems, and mobile technologies with specialised knowledge in computer vision, multimodal sensors analytics, and eHealth. Hundreds of cancer survivors have used his work on eHealth systems for women's wellness promotion. His AI-enabled mobile apps have improved young people’s mental health and supported children with chronic pain. Dian’s research has led to the design, implementation and comprehensive evaluation and benchmarking of novel image analysis techniques that use cutting-edge AI and machine learning techniques for visual analysis applications across sectors. His work on multichannel content delivery projects has developed new technologies which has transformed and brought competitive advantage to the traditional media industry by tracking and analysing emerging information across digital platforms in real time. Professor Tjondronegoro was a finalist in the ICT Researcher of the Year category in the 2018 ACS Digital Disruptor Awards in recognition of his transformational research outcomes.

2023

Lynn Warneke has made distinguished contributions over three decades of leadership of enterprise ICT transformations and emerging technology innovations in several sectors, and as a role model for women. Lynn led digitisation of the student experience in higher education, including pioneering a digital Centre-of-Excellence and award-winning Smart Campus program. She has been recognised as one of Australia’s most innovative CIOs, for an innovative ways-of-working blueprint and workplace transformation for state government. As a non-executive director of not-for-profit and social enterprises, Lynn applies her deep ICT and transformation expertise, to support governance of cyber and technology risks and the development of new organisational capabilities and solutions essential for success in the digital era. Lynn has made a sustained contribution to technology diversity and inclusion advocacy, and volunteers as a start-up founder mentor, providing expertise to help grow early-stage Australian technology companies.

2023

Johnny Serrano has made a distinguished contribution to the ICT industry as an exceptional leader and a fervent advocate of innovation, diversity and inclusion. Johnny firmly believes that innovation comes out of diversity, and is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion, particularly for international students and professionals. As CIO of GroundProbe, he successfully harnessed augmented reality to change the business model of operations and maintenance and solve issues where engineers who were not physically able to visit sites. GroundProbe has been awarded recognition of its successful adoption of this innovation. He has been an active member of the ACS National Diversity and Inclusion Council and has established an internship program with leading universities to create career pathways and provide organisations with access to the best talent. He was awarded the ACS President’s Award in 2021 in acknowledgement of his leadership through the adoption of emerging technologies and promoting a culture of innovation, diversity and inclusion.

2023

Trina Myers has made a distinguished contribution to ICT in the field/s of higher education and research in emerging new technologies. She recognised there was an immense gap in what is now known widely as Work Integrated Learning. She helped to pioneer this important area of higher education and graduate employability movement. Trina has been an active member of numerous working groups that aimed to shape ICT higher education, including the Chief Scientist, Dr. Alan Finkle’s, “closing the gap working group” (2017) and the ACS “CBOK refresh” working groups. Trina has played an integral role on the Australian Council of Deans of ICT (ACDICT) that aims to promote and advance ICT education, research and scholarship on behalf of Australian universities. Her work in longitudinal learning to create design thinking graduates earned her multiple L&T awards nationally and internationally.

2023

Paul Herring has made a distinguished contribution to ICT as an educator, creating pioneering initiatives to take new and innovative digital technologies into the community by engaging with senior school age students and their parents. This work encompassed technological innovation in software and infrastructure. He is recognised for setting up the first internet connections into Queensland schools via satellite and then demonstrating the value of this then new tool, to enhance the curricula. He went on to influence the course structures of senior level digital courses over many decades as a member of the Technologies Learning Area Reference Group and as a Lead Confirmer for the Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank Digital Solutions subject. This work emphasised how adopting new technologies can lead to the development of new enterprises and applications. He modelled this by creating an application for school fund raising that was spectacularly successful for the schools that used it.