Pearcey Oration 2021

Digital Transformation – Australia as a World Leader

Imagine the future!! We must if we want it to be better than today. Are you an innovator, founder, investor, business operator, professional, student, politician, academic, tradesperson? It doesn’t matter. Whatever your role in society, a better future needs your voice to shape that future.

The Pearcey Oration is presented each year by an eminent thought-leader, reflecting on critical, contemporary issues arising from the impact on our nation of new, advanced technologies. Past Orations have included those given by Roger Taylor, Robyn Williams, Dr Amanda Caples, Paul Shetler and John Blackburn AO.

Pearcey Oration 2021

The Coronavirus pandemic has demanded a rapid, agile and natively digital response to mobilising, delivering and accessing government services and support in the face of a rapidly changing world.

The Australian Tax Office is one of the most advanced implementations of digital government services on the planet. An international benchmark, the ATO is the unsung hero of the pandemic in Australia inasmuch as it was the advanced, flexible, digital systems that enabled the rapid deployment of JobSeeker, JobKeeper and all the other financial assistance programs the government made available to Australian citiziens and businesses.

In 2021, the Pearcey Oration will be delivered by Jeremy Hirschhorn, ATO Second Commissioner – encouraging us all to imagine the future, as he addresses Digital Transformation – Australia as a World Leader.

International competitiveness in the 21st century demands an adaptive public infrastructure capable of enabling rapid responses to the changing nature of business. Australia has long been supported by our ability to mine and export minerals, can we now become equally excellent at mining our digital resources to underpin high value exports?

Learn, share and connect – delving into this rich and complex topic, with like-minded individuals. Join the conversation after this, the most significant technology oration in the nation, to be part of making that better future happen!!

Help shape how we do a better job of making our nation an integrated community with technology as a vital plank for persistent, adaptive resilience and self-reliance in a post-pandemic century.

Victorian Entrepreneur of the Year Award

The Pearcey State Entrepreneur Awards are aimed at encouraging and rewarding fresh and innovative talent in the ICT profession. It is awarded to an individual during their career who has “taken a risk, made a difference and is an inspiration” within the ICT industry within each Australian State.

The Pearcey Foundation embraces all aspects of the ICT industry from traditional Information Science to the latest technological advances in social networking, multi-media, games and Internet technologies – the very broadest spectrum of the Australian innovative sector.

Since 2016 the Victorian Pearcey Entreprenur Award has been presented as part of the Digital Innovation Festival to the following recipients:

2020 Victorian Pearcey Entrepreneur Grant Petty, founder and CEO of Blackmagic Design

2019 Victorian Pearcey Entrepreneur Craig McDonald, founder and CEO of MailGuard and BlackEvents

2018 Victorian Pearcey Entrepreneur Bernie Tschirren and Michael Cameron  co-founders of Rome2Rio

2017 Victorian Pearcey Entrepreneur  Cyan and Collis Ta’eed co-founders of Envato

2016 Victorian Pearcey Entrepreneur  Martin Hosking co-founder and CEO of Redbubble

Evening

The evening will be a virtual event introduced and moderated by Jordan Green, Victorian State Chairman and National Secretary of the Pearcey Foundation

Find out more about the Pearcey Oration and the work of the Pearcey Foundation.

This event is sponsored by the Victorian Governmentand as a feature of the Digital Innovation Festival, now in its sixth year of celebration of Victoria’s tech community.