Tech Founders | Garvan Institute of Medical Research

Tech Founders for Garvan offers a unique opportunity to learn about the intersection of technology and genetics, the breakthroughs happening in this field and the revolution for healthcare that is already underway.

Tech Founders for Garvan will be attended by:

Guests

Mr Nick Abrahams

Board member, Garvan Research Foundation
Global Head of Technology and Innovation at Norton Rose Fulbright and has deep commercial expertise and global networks in the technology space.
Founder of leading online legal site, LawPath.

Mr Ashik Ahmed

Ashik Ahmed is the Cofounder & CEO of tech startup Deputy, a workforce management platform headquartered in Sydney, Australia.
Deputy is used by more than 250,000 workplaces in more than 100 countries to schedule, communicate with and ensure labor compliance standards are adhered to for more than 1 million shift workers across the globe using our platform.

Mr Roger Allen

Mr Roger Allen AM is a well-known entrepreneur, venture capitalist and social impact investor and philanthropist whose global career has spanned over 50 years.
Allen helped pioneer the Australian technology industry through the Computer Power Group, one of the first, Australian founded, tech companies to scale globally and subsequently IPO turning over approx. $1B in today’s currency.

Mr David Barda

An entrepreneur, executive and advisor specialising in technology commercialisation and early stage ventures for biomedical technologies.
Director for Business Development and Innovation at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.
Previously led a team commercialising medical technologies in Singapore with A*STAR, the national science and technology agency.

Mr Alex Badran

Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Spriggy, a finance app that allows parents to give their children pocket money digitally, by loading cash onto a prepaid card. It also teaches children how to manage their money.
Spriggy received backing from Mike Cannon-Brookes (Jr), via his investment venture, Grok Ventures.

Mr Riad Chikhani

Founder and CEO of the GAMURS Group, a leading esports media network with a global team reaching hundreds of millions of gamers per month.
Forbes 30 under 30 CEO. Riad built his first game by the time he was 12 by teaching himself Java and went on to teach himself PHP, MySQL, HTML and CSS at 14 years of age.

Mr Andrew Clarke

Entrepreneur and Founder of Cashrewards, Australia’s largest cashback platform, where users get a portion of their cashback when making a purchase online or in-store at more than 1,600 retailers, including Amazon, Apple, Myer, David Jones, Dan Murphy's, Microsoft and Booking.com.
Over $2 billion dollars in revenue generated for retail partners since launch in 2014.

Mr Michael Cannon-Brookes (Sr)

Board member, Garvan Research Foundation
Director of Cannon-Brookes Consulting Pty Ltd, and a CEO level executive coach with Foresight Global Coaching.
Established Citibank in Australia in 1985.

Ms Topaz Conway

Non-executive Director at: Neuraura Inc, Omni Tanker Pty Ltd, Cicada Innovations and UTS Foundation.
Professor of Practice at UNSW Business School.

Mr Robbie Cooke

CEO and Managing Director of Tyro Payments.
Formerly Managing Director and CEO of Tatts Group, a role which concluded upon the successful merger with Tabcorp in December 2017.

Mr Phil Copeland

Co-Founder and former CEO of Avoka
Avoka developed a software platform – ‘Avoka Transact’ enabling banks to rapidly create outstanding customer journeys for sales and onboarding.

Prof Chris Goodnow

Internationally renowned immunologist and recipient of The Bill & Patricia Ritchie Foundation Chair.
Joined Garvan in 2015 as Deputy Director, after an extensive research career including faculty positions at Stanford University and the Australian National University and has been closely involved in several biotechnology start-up companies. Has been Director of Garvan since 2018.

Mr Scott Farquhar

Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company that helps teams organise, discuss and complete shared work. More than 200,000 large and small organisations, NFPs, and government agencies across the world, including companies like ANZ bank, Spotify, Twilio, Mercy Ships and Visa use Atlassian’s collaboration products to help their teams work better together.
Co-Founder Pledge 1%, a corporate philanthropy movement dedicated to making the community a key stakeholder in every business.

Mr Steve Cuda

Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Cashrewards.
Previous GM of digital, media and data at Woolies X, Woolworths’ digital, e-commerce, customer loyalty and customer services division (from 2015 to 2020).

Mr Bill Ferris AC

Bill Ferris created Australia’s first venture capital firm in 1970 and is the Co-Founder with Joe Skrzynski of CPE Capital, formerly named CHAMP Private Equity Group. In March 2020, Bill was appointed Chair of the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund, Australia’s largest venture capital investor in the life sciences sector.
Bill was the inaugural Chair of Innovation and Science Australia from 2015 to 2018 which provided the report to Government entitled “Australia 2030 – Prosperity through Innovation”.

Mr Mark Fordree

Founder and Executive Director of Ignition Advice.
Has global experience across funds management, stock broking, corporate advisory and venture capital gained through a number of C-level roles at leading financial institutions such as Potter Warburg (UBS), ANZ Bank and ABN AMRO.

Dr Richard George

Dr Richard George is co-founder and Chief Data Scientist at Faethm AI. Faethm's AI SaaS platform models the evolution of work brought about by the disruptive effects of emerging technology. Faethm helps governments and companies around the world to prepare their workforce for the future.
PhD in bioinformatics from University College London
Postdoctoral positions at Inpharmatica – Europe’s first AI biotech - and the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute

Mr Michael Giles

Chief Technology Officer, Founder and Director of Ignition Advice.
Has 30 years’ experience in financial services software development during which time he has managed and built solutions in Australia, UK and the US for CBA, Westpac, Barclays, Lloyds and Microsoft.

Dr Susan Graham

CEO and Co-Founder of Dendra Systems, an environmental services company that uses drone technology to survey and analyse degraded land, and to plot trees to restore the ecosystems.
Graduated from the University of Oxford with a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in 2015.

Mr Rajeev Gupta

Partner of Alium Capital Management, a cross-over investment fund which invests in technology and innovation, domestically and internationally. Invests in early stage businesses, all the way through to publicly listed assets.

Mr Chris Hadley

Executive Chairman at Quadrant Private Equity
Existing Quadrant portfolio companies include: RiteBite Group, Junior Adventures group, Probe Group, QMS Media, Total Drain Group, MYMC, Fullerton Health, Journey Beyond, to cite only a few.

Louise Halloran

Director of Communications, Office of the CEOs/Founders at Atlassian.
Previously Head of APAC Communications at Atlassian covering Australia, Japan and India markets.

A/Prof Sarah Kummerfeld

Scientific Head of Garvan’s Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics.
Uses genomics to understand human disease and translate findings into clinical diagnostics and treatments.

Mr David Masters

David Masters is the Director of Global Public Policy at Atlassian.
Prior to this role he was the Corporate Affairs Director at Microsoft Australia and is currently the Chair of the Information and Communication Technology Industry Reference Committee.

Dr Daniel MacArthur

Director of Garvan’s new Centre for Population Genomics, established in partnership with Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, to solve the critical scientific, regulatory and technical problems currently limiting the development of genomic medicine in Australia, and execute large-scale projects that will establish Australia’s leadership in this field.
Previously served as Co-Director of the Medical and Population Genetics Program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and headed up a team jointly based at the Broad Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Mr Adam McCurdie

Humanitix received funding from the Atlassian Foundation and NSW Government. In 2018, the company won the Google Impact Challenge and is now doubling in size every 6 months.

Mr Nat McGregor

Mr McGregor joins Garvan as Chief Operating Officer in 2020.
He has over 20 years’ experience in financial and organisational leadership including holding the position of University of Newcastle Chief Operating Officer since 2013.

Mr Hamish McLennan

Mr McLennan is a media and marketing industry executive with over 30 years of experience
He is the new Chairman of Rugby Australia, Chairman of REA Group, Chairman of HT&E and a non-executive director of Magellan Financial group.

Mr John Meacock

Freelance Global Adviser and Non-executive Director; is a highly influential leader experienced at leading, growing and innovating business on a global stage. He has deep cross-industry expertise in strategy, risk, finance, technology impact, innovation, geopolitics and governance.

Mr Daniel Milham

Co-Founder and Director of Koala, an Australian start-up delivering high-quality furniture.
Non-Executive Director of Fishburners, a large start-up community helping start-ups start, grow and succeed.

Mr Daniel Petre AO

Partner at AirTree Ventures, an early and growth-stage venture capital fund. AirTree Ventures raised more than $700m to invest in high-growth businesses that are utilising technology to disrupt markets and provide compelling new products.
Daniel was previously the Founding Chairman of Netus, a technology investment company acquired by Fairfax Media in 2013, and before that he founded Australia's largest internet investment company, Ecorp, (a subsidiary of PBL; Publishing and Broadcasting Limited).

A/Prof Joseph Powell

Head of the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, a Lab Head at Garvan Institute of Medical Research and a Principal Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney.
Obtained his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2010 while a member of the scientific advisory board at Aviagen.

Mr Dominic Price

An accomplished TED speaker, Dom is proud to work at Atlassian, the home of the most intelligent t-shirt wearers in business. As our resident Work Futurist. Dom is our in house “Team Doctor” helping Atlassian scale by being ruthlessly efficient and effective, and spends over half his time helping our customers navigate transformation, agility, and the future of work.

Mr Josh Ross

Co-Founder of Humanitix, the first not-for-profit ticketing platform that directs 100% of the booking fees to education projects.

Mr Russell Scrimshaw

Chairman of the Garvan Research Foundation Board.
Was until recently the Non-Executive Chairman of UK listed Sirius Minerals Plc, and is currently Non-Executive Chairman of Tech Project Group P/L and the Executive Chairman of Torrus Capital P/L, the Australian Philanthropic Fund, the Scrimshaw Foundation and Scrimshaw Nominees P/L.

Mr Nimesh Shah

Chief Financial Officer at ReadyTech, a leading provider of software for the education and employment sector. It is backed by Pemba capital Partners.
Was previously Chief Financial Officer at Isentia, a media intelligence company and Finance Director at Fairfax digital

Ms Mara-Jean Tilley

Director of the Garvan Research Foundation, the marketing and fundraising arm of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.
Formerly the Director of Philanthropy, Bequests and Campaigns, she commenced working at Garvan in 2011.

Mr Howard Treisman

Currently on a sabbatical, Howard was CTO and Co-Founder of Avoka Technologies.
Avoka was founded in 2002, and expanded into Europe and North America. Avoka was purchased by Temenos, a European banking system provider, in December 2018.

Mr Gavin Whyte

Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at Public Sector Network, BrewAI.
BrewAI is a deep-learning automl product, with no coding required. With just a excel spreadsheet you can build an optimised neural network, predictive engine in hours ready for production.

Mr Blake Wills

Blake is a proven company executive with experience in the finance, life sciences and education sectors.
Previously the Chief Operating Officer of an ASX-listed company, he brings substantial operational, financial and governance experience to Microba as founding CEO. His financial background combined with his extensive operational expertise has driven Microba forward as a thriving company with more than 40 full-time employees.

Mr Bernard Wilson

Chief Executive Officer of Cashrewards in July 2020.
Bernard has over seven years’ experience leveraging data assets and marketing technology to drive competitive advantage for businesses through marketing and digital transformation, loyalty proposition optimisation, and data and media commercialisation.

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Tech Founders for Garvan

“DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” ― Bill Gates