• Delivering a personalised, digitally enabled health service to NSW citizens – unpacking successes to date, and assessing priorities into 2025
• Unlocking value-based healthcare, the integration of care, and improving the patient experience
• Balancing digitisation and self-service with human connections: Striking the X-factor
• Tapping into the value of collaboration and partnerships

• Moving from ‘data & analytics’ to ‘data & AI’: unlocking quality to become truly AI ready
• Unlocking the value of SA’s vast data assets to enable service innovation and delivery
• Building trust – how can we bring the public along for the journey?

• Graduates are being educated for jobs that do not exist and for a career that is likely to see 3 career changes and 15 role changes.
• The pace of change and adoption has increased significantly putting pressure on workforce skills.
• Universities need to educate students to be able to have expertise in adapting to innovations to keep pace with workforce needs

The protection of sensitive data has never been more critical, particularly within government sectors. We will explore the essential principles of cyber zero trust and how they can enhance security frameworks for South Australia’s government institutions. Highlighting the challenges of modern security threats, we will show you how to create a robust defence against data breaches and ransomware attacks to establish a secure future for South Australia’s public sector

Highlighting the pivotal role of effective data management in realising AI's potential. As we reach the crucial juncture of widespread AI adoption by governments and enterprises, we explore how AI has fundamentally transformed data management practices. The discussion emphasises AI's impact on scaling new projects by ensuring data quality, governance, and interoperability—a necessary foundation for successful AI deployment. The presentation illustrates AI's transformative capabilities, setting the stage for future innovation and economic benefits through examples of within the public sector.

• The Silent Productivity Killer – why outdated PDFs and clunky eSign tools are slowing your teams down.
• The Data Speaks – hard-hitting numbers on cost, time, and efficiency gains from smarter document workflows.
• Real-World Wins – how government agencies are ditching inefficiencies and transforming operations.
• The One Change That Matters – a simple shift that drives productivity, cuts costs, and improves employee experience.

• Inclusive by design, accessible by default – revolutionising the approach to ‘no one left behind’.
• Latest strategies, tools and technologies to better understand induvial customer needs and designing digital/in-person service accordingly
• User-Centricity – harnessing co-creation and user feedback to design next gen digital experiences citizens want and need
• Leveraging co-design for first nations engagement and ‘closing the gap’ deliverables.

• Moving from ‘data & analytics’ to ‘data & AI’: unlocking quality to become truly AI ready
• Unlocking the value of SA’s vast data assets to enable service innovation and delivery
• Building trust – how can we bring the public along for the journey?
• Enabling hyper-scalability – mastering MVG: Minimal Viable Governance

Shikha Sharma

Chief Information Officer, Department of Human Services

Greg Van Gaans

Director Geospatial Data Science and Analytics, Department for Housing and Urban Development

Dattu Sarma

Head of Advisory, Cloudwerx

• Building a talent pipeline for AUKUS
• Creating and upskilling a diverse workforce: leveraging underutilised skillsets within refugee, neurodivergent and first nations peoples
• Making SA public sector the #1 choice for top talent: Unpacking creative and effective recruitment strategies
• Avoiding ‘talent leakage’ to keep SA public sector skills inhouse: referring talent and creating pathways for progression between Agencies

Sally Nicholas

Executive Director, People & Culture, Department of Human Services

Graeme Jackson

Executive Director, People and Corporate Services, Department for Infrastructure and Transport

Billie-Jo Barbara

Former CHRO, Department for Child Protection

Julia Waddington-Powell

Chief Executive, SAFECOM

• Building Digital capability to deliver seamless, data-driven, and user-friendly digital services.
• Designing digital experiences that prioritise accessibility, inclusivity, and citizen needs.
• Exploring AI, automation, and cloud solutions to improve service efficiency and responsiveness.
• Breaking silos to create integrated, seamless digital experiences across government services.

• Pushing for innovation, while navigating risk, ethics and AI bias – developing responsible AI application
• Actionable AI: Democratising secure generative AI tools into everyday activity
• The impact of generative AI: exploring implications, requirements and opportunities within SA Government
• Exploring different models of access to AI through the organisation: GenAI platforms, productivity tools, and enterprise tools

• Unveiling priority defence innovation initiatives into 2025 and beyond
• Creating a strong workforce and skills pipeline for the defence and space sector
• How do we further progress and facilitate innovation in the SA defence ecosystem?
• Effective approaches to harnessing collaboration between industry, defence, academia and government

• Defining your strategy for modernisation to achieve agility, resilience and innovation and overcome legacy system limitations to enable emerging applications and tools
• Achieving simplification rather than proliferation of technology
• Overcoming legacy system limitations to enable emerging applications and tools
• Navigating the logistics: sense-checking successful strategies for integration

AI holds transformative potential for government operations, yet misconceptions and implementation challenges often hinder progress. In this session, we will debunk common AI myths and showcase its relevance in the public sector. Attendees will learn how to swiftly empower their teams to leverage AI responsibly. Through three practical demonstrations—focused on policy compliance, fraud detection, and service optimisation—we will illustrate how AI can accelerate innovation and overcome common objections. Join us to cut through the industry hype and discover actionable strategies for effective AI adoption in government.

• Adopting a hackathon approach to regenerative tourism: Leveraging co-creation, cost-cut collaboration, and removing siloes
• Creating an All-of-State approach to enhancing the State's tourism economy – the secrets to success in collaboration and partnerships
• The ‘people’ lense on tourism: Leveraging insights to adapt and meet changing customer needs
• The DNA of SA: The importance of Place Brand, and bringing it to life.

• Treating your legacy debt while meeting the technology challenge – how do you make good on both?
• Navigating high storage costs associated with emerging technology – do you pay up or stay behind?
• The CIO challenge of bringing the frontline narrative to your organisation, then the business narrative.
• Developing an operationally focused business case that talks to the narrative of government – how can you convince government to invest?

• The future of LLMs and the need for SA AI ownership: Will we take control or outsource to USA?
• The opportunity to do a better job of governance.
• Weighing the opportunities and risks of embedding LLMs within SA Government
• How LLMs surpass ethical AI as the critical consideration we should be addressing
• Improving the management of information security risks in the use of LLMs

The Power of Unified Data
By streamlining access to customer information, government agencies can significantly reduce manual workloads. 

Personalised Services and Proactive Delivery
Connected data and AI-driven tools are not just about efficiency; they also enable the personalisation of services, leading to smoother and more cohesive user experiences. 

Balancing Data Security with Innovation
While the benefits of AI and data-driven approaches are clear, the public sector must also navigate the delicate balance between data security and innovation. 

Financial Savings and Economic Benefits
The economic benefits of AI adoption in the public sector are substantial. Generative AI could unlock a USD $25 billion opportunity across all levels of the Australian government by 2030

• Which tasks should humans let go? Aligning humans and machines to their individual strengths for ultimate collaboration and efficiency
• The new workforce requirements: upskilling staff to partner with AI
• Where to apply technology, and what to leave to people
• Aligning technology, people and process strategies to hit the sweet spot in operational excellence
• Leveraging human strengths: making people a pillar in your strategy

• The art of navigating multiple technology terrains – keeping up with ever-changing business and citizen digital demands and scaling initiatives
• Developing the technology workforce required to meet future demands – empowering employees to meet digital/ IT business demands and prioritising future-oriented skills
• Making the right investment decisions amidst competing priorities – using discernment in new technology and digital services
• Powering collaboration to drive improved business outcomes – creating and fostering an innovation ecosystem

Richard Hill

CIO, Department for Infrastructure and Transport

Elise Vervetjes

Chief Information Officer, SA Water

Dan Hughes

CIO, Department for Education

• Emerging regulatory landscape for AI in public sector.
• 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

Dr Melanie McGrath

Honorary Fellow, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne

Dr Melissa McCradden

AI Director, Women's and Children's Hospital Network

Ameya Sawant

Director, Plan SA, Department for Housing and Urban Development

• Strengthening the states research and innovation capabilities
• Attracting and retaining key talent for the State
• Accelerating research capability and increasing awareness of critical technology in AI, Cyber, Quantum and photonics
• Partnerships: government and academia collaboration to drive industrial outcomes
• Driving industry adoption and collaboration with AI and innovation

Di Dixon

State Project Lead, Lot Fourteen; State Innovation Places Lead, Department of Premier and Cabinet SA

Professor Anton van den Hengel

Director, Centre for Augmented Reasoning (CAR) Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), University of Adelaide

Dr Andrew Dunbar

Executive Director, Research and Innovation, Department of State Development

• OPEX for CX: Unpacking successful approaches, tools and strategies to modernising service delivery
• Breaking down barriers when innovating within government
• Assessing emerging demands on service capability -where do the priorities challenges and opportunities lie in 2025
• Integrating people, process and technology to drive effective operational innovation and better customer outcomes

Kerrie Mahon

Deputy CEO, Clinical System Support & Improvement, Department for Health and Wellbeing

Professor Keith McNeil

Commissioner, Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health

Francois Rizk

Director of Sales, ANZ, Granicus