The Mobility Revolution

Future Crunch are part of a global movement of scientists, technologists, hackers and creatives that think there are new and better ways of doing things in the 21st century. Their expertise ranges from politics, economics, and bioinformatics to design, art and music. They use their diverse knowledge to provide unexpected perspectives on the world, through the lenses of science, technology and social theory. Their mission is to foster intelligent, optimistic thinking about the future, and to empower people to contribute to it.

We're joined by their co-founders, Dr Angus Hervey and Tane Hunter.

Angus is a political economist, journalist and media commentator specialising in the impact of disruptive technologies on society. He is the former community manager for Random Hacks of Kindness, the longest running and largest social hackathon in Australia, and the former editor of Global Policy, one of the world's leading international policy journals. He holds a Masters in Political Economy and a PhD in Government from the London School of Economics, where he was also the Ralph Miliband Scholar between 2009 and 2012.

Tane is a science communicator, futurist and bioinformatician. He has worked for the Royal Children’s Hospital diagnosing rare genetic diseases in children and is currently completing his PhD at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, using molecular biomarkers and artificial intelligence to better understand, diagnose and improve treatment for people suffering from cancer. He is also a former US mountain biking champion, and an avid sailor, participating in races around the world.

Dr. Catherine Ball is an author, founder, and ethics advocate working across global projects where robotics and new technology meet environmental protection.

A sought after voice in industry, Dr. Ball is now the CEO of an Australian startup working with the application of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) aka drone technology across remote communities, schools, industry, and citizen scientists. Dr. Ball is leading the call for discussions around the ethics of spatial data, aka geo-ethics.

Dr. Ball’s biggest passion is found working on projects that have a humanitarian aspect, ranging from the use of RPAS for emergency response, to recording cultural heritage, and agricultural assessments. Dr. Ball has travelled and worked globally on cutting edge projects that combine science, entrepreneurship, empowerment, education, and training.

Dr. Ball was the chosen ‘drone advisor’ to DFAT InnovationXChange’s “Pacific Humanitarian Challenge” and is continuing to support these efforts, as well as initial talks with the UN’s World Food Programme on using drones to distribute food aid, especially in conflict areas, such as Syria. Catherine continues to advise federal and state government across Australia. Her most recent works in Queensland involve the training and education of indigenous rangers to use drones as part of their work, thereby reducing health and safety risk, and increasing the efficiency of data collection. This will lead to indigenous owned “drones as a service” companies being created, and the data analysis and GIS training also provided to support the rangers, and create economic enterprise.

Dr. Ball is also talking with a number of Queensland schools about the processes to establish ‘Drone Academies’ on site, as the new drone economy is estimated to be worth some USD20B per annum by 2020, with 10% of future jobs attached to the drone economic ecosystem. Catherine believes there needs to be discussions around flying safely and ethically, and these need to start as soon as possible.

Dr. Ball continues to support Australia as being the world leader in the non-military application of drone technology, also known as “drones for good”. A believer in appropriate data, not open data, Dr. Ball is currently starting a new business looking at the future data management needs across our geospatial industry, especially when faced with new technologies, such as drones, that produce a lot of data very quickly. 

Dr. Ball holds a BSc Honours (Environmental Protection) and a PhD (Spatial Ecology, Descriptive and Predictive Statistics) from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the United Kingdom. In March 2017 she was appointed to the Australian National University's Business and Industry Advisory Board.

Some of the awards Dr. Ball has won include:

• 2015 AFR BOSS Magazine Young Executives of the Year - Winner

• National Telstra Business Woman of the Year 2015, Corporate and Private Award

• Queensland Telstra Business Women's Awards Winner 2015: Queensland Business Woman of the Year, Queensland Corporate and Private.

• Innovator of Influence, 2015 at Innovation Week

• Courier Mail Q Magazine: Queensland 50 Best and Brightest, 2015

Graeme Whickman is president and chief executive officer, Ford of Australia and New Zealand at Ford Motor Company, a position he has held since 2015. In this role, he is leading the team delivering Ford’s transformation plan to that will result in a world-class marketing and sales organization serving the wants and needs of our customers in Australia.

Previously, Whickman served as the vice president, Marketing Sales & Service, Ford of Australia, playing a key role in delivering the transformation of Ford’s business in the market, including the work to revamp the dealer experience, resulting in dramatic improvements in customer satisfaction with both sales and service.

Since joining the company in 1997, Whickman has delivered landmark work in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Prior to moving to Australia, he served as vice president of Marketing and vice president of Sales for Ford of Canada, where he pioneered the company’s global consumer experience initiatives. Before that, he was the executive director of Marketing for Asia Pacific, leading the transformation of the company’s key marketing processes in Asia Pacific.

Among other company assignments, he was the market director for Ford in New Zealand and worked on customer relationship management for Ford in the U.K. Prior to coming to Ford, Whickman served with Coca Cola in New Zealand and Hertz Rentacar in the U.K. Whickman grew up in England and New Zealand, and obtained a Bachelor of Business in Marketing from Auckland University of Technology (NZ) in 1998.

Bryony Cooper is the executive manager of City Access and Transport at the City of Sydney, responsible for transport policy development, transport planning and the promotion of active travel. The unit works closely with internal and external stakeholders to realise an accessible city which offers high levels of mobility and amenity.

Bryony’s career in urban and multi-modal transport planning has focused on large and complex city areas. She recognises the fundamental need to consider both land use and transport together to create sustainable and liveable cities. Bryony believes these city outcomes to be fundamentally important in directing technological changes in mobility.

Bryony’s work has included strategic urban planning, major transit infrastructure development, behavioural programs and project implementation. She understands how big projects can translate into community outcomes – both good and bad. Bryony holds a BSocSc (Geography and Planning) from Birmingham University and a MSc (Transport Planning and Management) from the University of Westminster.