Shapeshifters – Beyond Reality

20 MAY
Shapeshifters –
Beyond Reality
Are technologies that extend, bend or amaze our senses reframing
our relationships, the way we communicate and how we live?
When
Wednesday 20 May
6.00pm drinks and canapés for
6.30pm start, concludes 8.15pm
For most of us, our experience with artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented environments
comes from entertainment or sits in the realm of science fiction. Yet globally experts are already
creating the next generation of these technologies that will have a profound impact on how we
experience and understand the world.
Where
The Great Hall
Level 5, UTS Tower Building,
Broadway, Ultimo
Will these technologies ultimately bring us closer together, or drive us further apart? How can they be
used in more practical and important ways – for discovery or design or to attain a better quality of life?
What new ‘literacies’ will we need as our digital and physical lives increasingly merge?
Transport
UTS is only ten minutes’ walk
from Central Station, Eddy
Avenue and Railway Square bus
stops.
Parking is available for those with
a disability or special need to
drive:
Peter Johnson Building,
Basement Car Park, 702-730
Harris St. Ultimo.
RSVP 19 May 2015
Register attendance with
Robert Button
Email: robert.button@uts.edu.au
Tel: 02 9514 1734
--------------------------------------------UTSPEAKS: is a free public lecture
series presented by UTS experts
discussing a range of important issues
confronting contemporary Australia
UTS CRICOS PROVIDER CODE: 00099F
This free Shapeshifters lecture explores how technology that is transforming our perception can
reveal the secrets locked inside complex research data, offer new solutions for the care of the elderly
and help us design cities that could draw communities closer together, not further apart.
Moderator – Monique Potts, Deputy Director, UTS Innovation and Creative Intelligence Unit
For more than 20 years Monique Potts has managed projects in digital media and innovation. At the ABC she drove digital
innovation across the organisation and oversaw development of the ABC’s award-winning digital education portal ABC Splash.
She has a long history of research and development across the media, cultural, education and start-up sectors working to
create innovative products and services.
Ben Simons, Lead Developer, UTS Data Arena
Ben Simons joined UTS in 2013 to develop a virtual reality theatre that will enable researchers to interact with data they
produce in a full-surround 3D-stereo computer graphics format. He has worked on 15 feature films including Happy Feet Two
Repo Men, Fast & Furious, Max Payne, Death Race, and Resident Evil: Extinction, and is an AACTA accredited visual FX
supervisor. At the CSIRO Ben co-invented & patented the Safe-T-Cam real-time traffic camera system for NSW RTA and in
1997 he built the world's fastest computer cluster at Mech Eng University of Sydney, winning the IEEE Gordon Bell prize.
Professor Hung Nguyen AM, Assistant Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Innovation); Director, Centre for
Health Technologies
Hung Nguyen has been involved with research in the areas of biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence, neurosciences and
advanced control for more than 25 years. He has developed several biomedical devices and systems for diabetes, disability,
cardiovascular disease and breast cancer. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia; the Australian Computer
Society; and the British Computer Society. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2002 and was a
Finalist for NSW Australian of the Year Award 2012.
Michelle Tabet, Independent Strategy Director
Michelle Tabet is an independent strategy director who advises the makers of the built environment on the structural shifts and
trends that impact the future of our cities. With a background in urban planning and strategy, Michelle is interested in the
intersection between digital technology and urban living. She has been following and documenting the ways in which our
expectations and behaviours as city dwellers are changing. Michelle previously led the urban informatics team in the
Australasian region for global engineering consultancy Arup.