Tech Shift Exponential

Ross is a creative sustainability professional with an academic background in engineering and finance. He provides sustainability advice and cost/benefit analysis on architectural projects ranging from houses to city wide master plans and ski resorts. Architecture firms includ internationally recognised firsm such as Foster & Partners, Aterliers Jean Nouvel, Adjaye Associates and Grimshaw Architects. 

Ross has lived and worked as a consultant in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Stockholm, Mexico and Berlin. Acknowledging that the barriers to transform cities to become self-sufficient is as much about technology and finance as it is people, Ross started to focus on creative communications. Since then, Ross and his team has worked on creative sustainability initiatives ranging from staging solar powered events off the grid with Vivienne Westwood in London and in the middle of the CBD in Melbourne, to sustainability road trips and film making with Design Hotels in Germany.

Deputy Lord Mayor Councillor Jess Miller was first elected to council in 2016 and is one of the youngest people to hold elected office at the City of Sydney. Jess is currently deputy chair of the Environment Committee and the Cycling Advisory Committee and a member of the Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils. 

Jess is passionate about supporting Sydney's night-time economy, and the artists, musicians, small bar owners and venues that underpin it.

Jess is a program advisor to sustainability and innovation company, Republic of Everyone.

Jess is known for her creative and inclusive approaches to sustainability, strategy and innovation. Jess co-founded GreenUps Sustainability Drinks, Grow it Local and the Elizabeth Street Gallery. She has worked on the Garage Sale Trail, Tweed Ride and Grow Show which featured an enormous veggie patch and education programs outside Melbourne Town Hall.

For the past three years, Jess has curated the food program for TEDxSydney where she introduced 'crowd-farming', 'rebel food' and 'love food'. Jess is passionate about the power of food to bring people together, celebrating local food and drink producers of Sydney and she was the curator of the General Thinking on the Streets of Barangaroo event series. 

Jess sits on the Environment Panel for the Greater Sydney Commission, is a Weleda Biodiversity ambassador, sits on the Parent Advisory Group of the Parenthood and was voted the Sydney electorate's Woman of the Year 2014. She was voted as a Reformer in the Sydney Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People in 2012.

Her work has earned an Industry Innovation Award from the Property Council for the 202020 Vision, Good Design Award for Social Innovation, Australian Event Award for Best Achievement in Catering for TEDxSydney and Grow It Local collaboration.

Tim Silverwood is a passionate advocate for protecting our oceans and environment from human impacts. A keen surfer, Tim became alarmed at the increasing risks plastic pollution posed to our oceans and wildlife, co-founding the not-for-profit organisation 'Take 3' in 2009.

In 2011, Tim sailed 500 kilometres across the North Pacific Ocean to study the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, sharing his experiences through a popular TEDx talk on his return. Tim has delivered over 200 presentations and workshops to schools, communities, businesses, government agencies and conferences including South by Southwest Eco in Austin, Texas and the prestigious Our Ocean conference in Washington D.C.

Tim's achievements include being awarded the 2014 Green Globe 'Sustainability Champion', featuring in the hugely popular ABC series War on Waste and starring as an 'Ocean Guardian" in the 2017 feature documentary Blue.

Tim delivers an entertaining, reasoned and firm case for reducing waste, preventing pollution and shifting to a circular economy to save our oceans and achieve true 'sustainability'. It is Tim's mission to have us rethink the way we make, use and throw 'away' stuff we use everyday.

Tim is speaking at TECH SHIFT EXPONENTIAL at The Concourse, Chatswood 15 June.

Katerina Kimmorley is a clean tech expert at the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Innovation Fund — the world's largest venture capital fund for clean tech. At the CEFC Katerina is a venture capital specialist accelerating the growth of clean tech companies, across renewable energy, distributed energy, energy efficiency, software, hardware and internet of things leading 70% of the direct equity investments in the region in FY2017.

Prior to this role, Katerina has had extensive experience in the clean energy industry in Australia, Europe and Asia as a VC, entrepreneur and founding director of Pollinate Energy, a multiple award-winning social enterprise.  As a leading voice in this field over the last five years she has spoken at the UNFCC COP 19 (where Pollinate Energy won a Momentum for Change Award), TEDxLSE and Vivid Ideas and was recognised by the Financial Review as one of Australia's 100 Women of Influence for her work in the energy sector in Australia and overseas.

Louise is an environmental science educator. She worked as a zoologist throughout Australia for over 15 years, particularly in the marine, wetlands and conservation field. Over the last 10 years she worked as a high school science teacher, specialising in chemistry, biology and marine technology. Her passion to stop plastics entering the oceans has led her to starting a social enterprise called the Plastic Collective in 2016. 

By creating purpose-built mobile plastic recycling machines and developing a specialised and unique training program for remote and island communities, Louise has become a specialist in the chemistry of plastics and zero-waste education which empowers communities to turn waste into resources.  

Louise has a BSc (Zoology/Antropology), Mac.Uni Sydney; Grad.Cert Env.Ed (Griffith Uni Brisbane); Dip.Ed (Secondary Science-Chemistry/Biology) UNE Armidale and is currently completing B.International Studies (Global Politics & Peace/Mandarin).

Combining a background in hospitality and a fifth generation farmer, David Sivyer founded and runs Feedback Organic Recovery, a business that turns food waste into hyper-local, organic produce on urban farms.  

In its fifth year of operation, Feedback Organic Recovery offers a hands-on approach that educates and engages communities to get behind local, sustainable and organic food production all the while repurposing food waste to its maximum creating a perfect closed loop system.

Since 1997, former science teacher Bernie Hobbs has been talking and writing about her great passion at the ABC as well as hosting science events around Australia. Bernie is probably best known as a popular judge from ABC TV's The New Inventors, and she's a firm favourite with audiences for her weekly science spots on ABC radio with Red Symons (ABC Melbourne), James Valentine (ABC Sydney) and Richard Fidler (ABC Brisbane).

Bernie has that rare combination of a sharp intellect, quick wit and warmth. With a background in medical research, environmental writing and, of course, science teaching, Bernie can tackle tough or technical subjects and bring the driest topics alive for lay or expert audiences. She's worked with kids, animals and rocket scientists, and shared the stage with prime ministers and rock stars. She happily takes the hot seat at triple j when Dr Karl can't, and loves nothing more than working with a live audience.

Bernie, who has a first class honours degree in biochemistry and microbiology, has won awards for experiMENTALS, the ABC's kids TV science show, and for her infamous greenhouse website Planet Slayer where you find out what age you should have died at so you don't use more than your share of the planet. Bernie Hobbs has been an MC and chaired forums and events for clients including: Prime Minister's Prizes for Science, the Association of Consulting Engineers Australia, a swathe of CRCs, GHD, Queerscreen, the Queensland Government, The Queensland Resources Council, CSIRO, The Australian Society of Medical Research, The Australian Fodder Industry Association, Brisbane Ideas Festival, The World Congress of Science Journalists, and Questacon, to name just some. Bernie Hobbs puts the fun into the fundamentals of science.

Sara AKA the sustainability ninja, is a cheeky potty mouth who has disrupted the higher education system, construction industry and now she has her eyes set on the economy. She's a full-time advocate for creating change wherever her part-time mermaid adventures take her. 

Sara is also the co-founder of Re:Purpose for Good which just won the People's Choice Award at Pitch@Palace — an initiative by the Duke of York. Re:purpose is currently repurposing plastic and e-waste to make robotic prosthetics and working to change the value of waste.

She is also the co-founder of F**kgiving — a contagious movement designed to unlock human potential and the program manager at the Centre for Sustainability Leadership training up the next batch of future makers.

Sara is an igniter of big ideas and a systems thinker, specialising in bringing the right legends together to get things done. She is formally trained as both a biomedical scientist and environmental engineer, which essentially makes her a designer, who sees the planet as one big outdoor laboratory. Overall, she is a passionate connector, putting purpose and positive impact at the core of everything she does.

In a previous life, she was the Education for Sustainability manager at Macquarie University, TedX speaker, co-host for the Un-School of Disruptive Design and associate editor of the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education.