VicGov AI Showcase

• Driving growth into 2025 and beyond: harnessing the next phase of opportunity in leveraging AI to reduce cost, increase productivity, and improve CX. 
• Value Pools and some of the ways in which we can avoid a spaghetti mess of AI, conflicting technology, and inconsistent approaches within the department. 
• Getting AI fundamentals right: assurance, ethics, and engineering – exploring critical next steps. 
• Tying AI into the overall business to realise the full impact – and harnessing data correctly. 

• Actionable AI: Democratising secure generative AI tools into everyday activity 
• The impact of generative AI: exploring implications, requirements and opportunities within Victorian Government 
• Exploring different models of access to AI through the organisation: GenAI platforms, productivity tools, and enterprise tools 
• Unpacking tangible use cases and emerging opportunities 

Sam Khoury, CIO, Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority   

Stela Solar, Director, National AI Centre, CSIRO  

• AI within customer contact – innovative approaches to delivering a relevant and memorable experience to bolster engagement and trust. 
• Leveraging AI to accelerate public connection, trust, and confidence through seamless and simple services – the how to. 
• Balancing digitisation and self-service with human connections: Striking the X-factor. 
• The AI intersection – bridging the CIO, COO, CDO and CXO roles: integrating operational transformation leaders to connect end-user interactions and customer expectations. 
• Leveraging AI for idea generation: Applying AI to solve customer challenges and enhance experiences. 

Andrew Larkin, CIO, Department Families, Fairness and Housing   

Emily Mailes, Chief eHealth Strategy Officer, Department of Health  

• Shifting the conversation from risk to opportunity – redefining the potential of AI and the benefits we can derive. 
• Building trust – how can we bring the public, and the business, along for the journey? 
• Unlocking AI opportunities: Pushing for innovation, while navigating risk, ethics and AI bias – developing responsible AI applications. 
• The role of government as it relates to the use of AI in the community: Exploring responsibilities, regulatory roles and safeguard requirements  

Cassandra Highfield, Executive Director, Information Services, Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions  

Rod Apostol, CIO, Victorian Ombudsman   

Ash Dhareshwar, Head of Innovation & Improvement, Cenitex  

Dallas Reilly, CIO, Triple Zero Victoria  

• Getting your principles and frameworks right. 
• How to make your data AI ready – poor quality data is garbage in, garbage out. 
• Value is easy if the foundations are right – how do you set yourself up for success tomorrow? 
• How to industrialise data science – and unlock value rapidly. 

Tracy Davenport, Executive General Manager, Technology Delivery, nbn co  

• Emerging regulatory landscape for AI in public sector.
• Privacy, Regulation & Ethics: Maintaining public trust and adopting responsible and ethical AI practices
• Implementing bias evaluation to ensure ethical AI for inclusive and effective solutions
  Applied AI risk management and governance .
  Exploring methods and tools for assessing and mitigating bias in AI datasets and models to adhere to ethical standards.

Greg Adamson, CISO, Department of Transport 

• Navigating the degree of unreliability of LLMs: What does this mean for the use of these tools in Government, and how can we manage the risks?
• Improving the management of information security risks in the use of LLMs

Rachel Dixon, Privacy and Data Protection Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner 

• Enabling hyper-scalability – Mastering MVG: Minimal Viable Governance.  
• Exploring practical and successful steps in scaling AI. 
• Operational AI – driving efficiency and accuracy to streamline services. 
• Transforming business strategies & processes to get the most out of AI. 
• Proactively infusing governance into AI initiatives to better detect and mitigate model risk. 

Alexis Ewing, Executive Director, Infrastructure Services, Cenitex 

• Identifying when and where to deploy AI: exploring potential areas where AI practices can drive both operational efficiencies and innovations, building on Victoria’s existing strengths and capabilities
• Privacy, Regulation & Ethics: Maintaining public trust and adopting responsible and ethical AI practices
• Unlocking the potential of emerging AI capabilities: driving responsible, transparent and explainable AI workflows, today and for the future

Elizabeth Wilson, CIO, Department of Education

• Modernising the organisation is a necessity if you’re going to extract the value you think you will from data – how can we do it within the confines of Government?  
• IT plus ‘OO’ (old organisation) equals ‘EOO’ (expensive old organisation): Simplification rather than proliferation of technology – modernising the organisation to extract high value from data, and in turn, AI. 
• It’s not a tooling problem, it’s an underpinning data fabric problem. Setting AI up for success. 
• The new CDO – moving into a new generation of data and AI – how do you codify existing frameworks to enable a federated data and AI organisation? 
• Who’s guiding the value conversation? Unpacking the commercial proposition – and leading from this standpoint. Frameworks vs reality.

Fawad Abro, Assistant Commissioner, Enterprise Data and Analytics, ATO  

• Regulatory and practical barriers to public sector adoption of AI
• Data management preconditions: AI-ready government data
• The potential role for AI in the management of complex systems in real-time
• Can AI replace the business case? Dynamic options, scenario modelling, cost modelling, performance management, and benefits realisation with AI

Stela Solar, Director, National AI Centre, CSIRO

Elena Campbell, Associate Director – Research, Advocacy and Policy at Centre for Innovative Justice, RMIT University