Speakers

Aliya Ahmad

Aliya Ahmad is the Associate Director at the Economic Media Centre, an organisation that trains and pitches diverse spokespeople with lived experience of economic issues into the mainstream media to help create more inclusive policies. She is a media campaigner with deep experience shifting narratives in the mainstream media and has developed and led state and national campaigns across a diversity of issues including homelessness and social housing, racial justice and education. Aliya sits on the Board of Switchboard Victoria and a part of the Our Watch Making Media Change Advisory Group. She is a seasoned public speaker, regularly contributing campaign media expertise and racial and economic messaging advice for social change campaigns.

Moderator: Communicating for justice:creating change with comms and media (Thursday 7 October at 11am)

Roj Amedi

Roj Amedi is a strategist, community organiser and writer. She is the Head of Engagement at Justice Connect, Chair of the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival, Chair of Overland Literary Journal and a steering committee member of the Law and Advocacy Centre for Women. Her life’s work is economic and racial justice.

Previously Roj was the Senior Human Rights and Racial Justice Campaigner at GetUp! and Colour Code - leading a national movement of First Nations people and communities of colour for racial justice. She has supported communities across the country to to advocate for economic justice, a non-discriminatory migration system, improve representation across public institutions, combat the rise of white supremacist groups and stamp out structural racism and discrimination.

Roj’s expertise is underpinned by her lived experiences as a Kurd, a queer woman and a former refugee from Iraq. She lives and works on the sovereign lands of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation.

Panel Session: Communicating for justice:creating change with comms and media (Thursday 7 October at 11am)

Dr Deb Anderson

Deb Anderson is a journalist, oral historian and academic based in Melbourne. Raised on a dairy farm in north Queensland, she spent more than a decade working for the press in Australia and overseas, principally for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, before becoming a lecturer at Monash University in 2013. Her work explores the meaning of extreme weather for Australians, and how this shapes perceptions of issues of climate change. She enjoys collaborative projects that bring together people in communities, industries and university, and recently completed a new oral history collection on drought for Museum Victoria. The stories in that collection became the basis of the book Endurance: Australian Stories of Drought (CSIRO Publishing, 2014). She has begun a new collection on cyclone experiences in northern Australia and an investigation of media coverage of bushfire protection policies in Victoria.

Panel Session:  Climate Change Communication above 1.5: Hope, fear and justice in a hotter, scarier world (Wednesday 6 October at 4pm)

Dr Belinda Barnet

Dr Belinda Barnet is Senior Lecturer in Media at Swinburne with research interests in digital cultures, social media, the app economy, data analytics, AI, data privacy, cyberstalking, and the history of digital media. She welcomes applications from prospective students working on topics in social media and digital media.

Her current projects include examining the role of automation in speech rehabilitation in order to improve the use of Cochlear Implants in deaf children, and investigating Shadow Data.

Alongside her research work, Dr Barnet has worked as Service Delivery Manager (Wireless Content Services) for Ericsson Australia. She is the author of "Memory Machines: the Evolution of Hypertext" (Anthem Press UK, 2013). She convenes the Social Media Major at Swinburne.

Panel Session: Public Infrastructure for the digital town square (Thursday 7 October at  6pm)

Marcella Brassett

Marcella Brassett is a writer, media & communications expert and campaigner. She has worked for Corporate and Not for Profit organisations, Members of Parliament, federal and state election candidates and in the racial, social and gender justice, climate and forest protection movements for the past 15 years. Her specialisation is cross cultural empowerment of people with lived experience to participate in and shape political movements and media narratives, and powerfully represent and advocate for themselves and their communities.

Marcella is currently the Media and Engagement Manager at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, where she trains, supports and facilitates people seeking asylum and refugees to appear in the media, and regularly secures coverage by The Project, ABC, SBS, The Guardian, Fairfax, Saturday Paper and commercial TV news and radio. Marcella played a leading role in the Kids Off Nauru, Medevac, Home to Bilo, Nobody Left Behind (COVID19) and Time for a Home campaigns. Marcella was one of the lead national organisers for March for Justice.

Panel Session:  Communicating for justice:creating change with comms and media (Thursday 7 October at 11am)

Bridget Brennan

Bridget Brennan is the ABC's national Indigenous affairs editor, covering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs across Australia. Bridget has worked as a reporter in Sydney, Melbourne, Darwin and Hong Kong. She is a former Europe correspondent for the ABC.


Panel Session: Settler media vs Black Sovereignty (Wednesday 6 October at 6pm)

Michelle Brown

Michelle Brown is an internationally recognised VR and new media artist focused on immersive and interactive art installations and creating storytelling experiences in the mixed reality space. She has produced documentary series for Australian television, created music videos and visuals for a variety of artists and festivals and has exhibited work internationally and around Australia. Michelle has exhibited VR experiences in LA and Melbourne and was the recipient of Brisbane City Council’s Creative Sparks award in 2019 to present a solo interactive VR installation locally. Her work has been featured in the Museum of Other Realities, Cannes XR, Toronto New Wave Festival, DreamlandXR Festival, Github Universe and she has worked with Snapchat, Google, The Other Art Fair, Splendour in the Grass plus many more.

Panel Session: Non-Fungible Tokens: To buy or not to buy an NFT? (Thursday 7 October at 11am)

Hans Chang

Hans Chang is a dynamic EdTech founder and startup community builder based in Melbourne, Australia. He is passionate about entrepreneurship, Self-Sovereign Identity blockchain technologies and maker education.  Making is characterised by exploratory, interest-driven, and hands-on learning. Hans Chang holds a Bachelor of Engineering EE degree from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and an MBA from UCLA Anderson, USA.

Panel Session: Creative Entrepreneurship Students Pitching Session (Thursday 7 October 2021 at 1pm)

Dr John Cook

John is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub. His research focus is understanding and countering misinformation about climate change, with an emphasis on using critical thinking to build resilience.

He obtained his PhD at the University of Western Australia, studying the cognitive psychology of climate science denial. In 2007, he founded Skeptical Science, a website that won the 2011 Australia Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge. In 2013, he published a paper quantifying the 97% scientific consensus on climate change which was highlighted by President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron. In 2015 at the University of Queensland, he led the development of a Massice Open Online Course on climate science denial, that has received 40,000+ enrollments from over 185 countries. He co-authored the college textbooks Climate Change: Examining the Facts and Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis, as well as the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand.

Panel Session: Climate Change Communication above 1.5: Hope, fear and justice in a hotter, scarier world (Wednesday 6 October at 4pm)

Dave Court

Dave Court is a multi-disciplinary artist working in areas of painting, design and installation. Current work includes large scale mural painting, public sculpture, digital and new media exploration and creation of immersive installations.

After graduating with Visual Arts honours specialising in painting in 2013, Dave was involved with award winning immersive art project Mr IST followed by other major projects including ethical clothing brand foolsandtrolls, retail space Created Range and Yewth Magazine and serving as a board member for Renew Adelaide.

Dave’s practice is based around painting, and has expanded to include experimental aspects of photography, video, tech, performance, installation and collaboration.

Panel Session: Non-Fungible Tokens: To buy or not to buy an NFT? (Thursday 7 October at 11am)

Professor Mel Dodd

Mel is the Head of Architecture at Monash. Her pedagogical practice focuses on the relationship between academia and practice, specifically within contested urban regeneration contexts.  Previously, Mel was Associate Dean at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London where she was responsible for developing innovative partnerships between the university, external agencies and communities.

Panel Session: Creative Precincts - Policy and Possibility (Thursday 7 October at 4pm)

Dr Ben Eltham

Dr Ben Eltham is a Lecturer in Media and Communications at Monash University’s School of Media, Film and Journalism. Ben is a passionate teacher who leads several of the core subjects in Monash's innovative Masters of Cultural and Creative Industries. Before taking up his position at Monash, he lectured at Deakin University in the School of Communications and Creative Arts. After completing his doctoral thesis at Western Sydney University's Institute of Culture and Society in the field of cultural policy, he held a three year post-doctoral fellowship at Deakin in the Centre for Memory, Imagination and Invention.

Ben’s primary research interest is the public policy of culture in Australia, particularly at federal level. He has published peer-reviewed journal articles, conference presentations, creative works, and edited book chapters. His monograph, When the Goal Posts Move: Patronage, power and resistance in Australian cultural policy 2013-2016 was published by Currency House in 2016. His key research collaborations are currently with Professor Mark Andrejevic's Culture Media Economy group at Monash, and with Professor Deb Verhoeven’s Kinomatics Group for digital humanities at the University of Alberta.

Ben also works extensively in the popular media as a journalist and essayist. Ben has covered federal politics for a decade as the National Affairs Correspondent at New Matilda, and he is a regular contributor to journals such as Crikey, Guardian Australia, Overland, Meanjin and the Sydney Review of Books. He is also sought out as a cultural policy consultant by federal, state and local policymakers, penning reports for the federal Department of Industry, Creative Victoria, the Victorian Music Development Office, and the City of Sydney.

Twitter:  @beneltham

Moderator: Climate change communication above 1.5: Hope, fear and justice in a hotter, scarier world (Wednesday 6 October, 4pm)

Associate Professor Rebecca Forgasz

Rebecca worked in the Victorian cultural sector for over 20 years as curator, educator and, most recently, Director & CEO of the Jewish Museum of Australia, before taking up a Practice appointment at Monash in 2019. Her role at Monash includes coordination of an initiative to develop a “creative precinct” at the Monash Caulfield campus.

Moderator:  Creative Precincts - Policy and Possibility (Thursday 7 October at 4pm)

Dr Xin Gu

Dr Xin Gu is an Expert appointed by UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Expression of Cultural Diversity (2019-2022). She heads the Master of Cultural and Creative Industries (MCCI) at Monash University in Australia. She has published widely on urban creative clusters and agglomerations, cultural work, creative entrepreneurship, cultural and creative industries policy, media cities, maker culture and cyberculture. Xin has worked with policy initiatives in the UK, China and Indonesia to support small-scale local creative industries development services. Her work focuses on the transformation of creative cities and the creative economy under different social, economic and political conditions. Xin’s current research concerns the digital creative economy, looking at the democratization of creativity through vast transformative digital media ecosystems. Her co-authored book Red Creative historicises the rise of creative economy in China, to be published by Intellect in 2020.

Twitter: @guxin2010

Moderator: Creative Entrepreneurship Students Pitching Session (Thursday 7 October 2021 at 1pm)
Panel Member:  Creative Precincts - Policy and Possibility (Thursday 7 October at 4pm)