Meet The Entrepreneur

OPEN INNOVATION 

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Meet the Entrepreneur is our semi-annual speaker series which is co-sponsored and hosted by Ernst & Young at their Sydney CBD office. 

This professional networking event features a moderated panel discussion between industry experts on a chosen topic.  Each panellist will introduce their organisation before the discussion, after which a Q&A session winds up the formal part of the evening.

 Hosted networking occurs both before and after the discussion.

This event's theme will be Open Innovation. 

The philosophy of open innovation is that in a world of widely distributed knowledge and swift movements in the marketplace, promoting the exchange, rather than the absolute protection, of research and innovation creates win-win solutions at every level.

Panelists are:

Darren Coomber is the CEO of IXC Australia and an IXC Intermediary.  The InnovationXchange (IXC) is an innovation services provider. IXC is frequently cited as a leading open innovation business model, growing from an Australian base to having hubs in UK and Malaysia with clients in 8 countries. Darren has a broad background in scientific research, commercialisation and consultancy in both the public and private sectors. His technical background includes a PhD in Chemistry and experience ranging from theoretical electrochemistry through to paediatric pain management. Darren’s passion for open and connected innovation has come from his first-hand knowledge of taking innovations to market through collaborations across disciplines, companies and borders.

Paul Levins has over 25 years experience in the government, corporate and non-government sectors. For the last 4 years he was Executive Officer and Vice President at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an organisation tasked with co-ordinating the Internet’s system of unique identifiers.  He was based first in the head office in Los Angeles and then established ICANN's Washington DC office where he was one of the key architects and writers of the "Affirmation of Commitments" - an improved accountability agreement between ICANN and the global community of Internet users - and liaised extensively with the US Congress and the Executive Branch.

Prior to joining ICANN, Paul was General Manager, Operations and Corporate Affairs at Bilfinger Berger Australia, a German-owned holding company in the infrastructure, building and services sector with a turnover of almost $2.5 billion and over 5000 staff.  He has also worked as a corporate affairs manager for Telstra Corporation.

Paul has substantial public sector policy experience having been an Adviser and Chief of Staff to Australian Federal and State Government Ministers in portfolios as diverse as Higher Education; Health; Urban Affairs and Planning; Housing; Social Security; Employment Services; Water; Infrastructure and Natural Resources.  He has worked at the Australian Human Rights Commission on the introduction of Tax File Number and Privacy legislation, and in the education and youth policy sectors.

Paul holds a Bachelor of Arts from Macquarie University, Sydney and is an Honorary Associate at the Graduate School of Government at the University of Sydney.

Darren Williams is the founding Chief Technology Officer and a Director of Freelancer.com, the world's largest outsourcing marketplace connecting over 2.5 million professionals from around the globe, and in the top 250 websites globally.

Freelancer.com primarily connects small businesses and individuals from the western world with freelancers in the developing world, empowering entrepreneurs on both sides of the globe. To date, over 1 million projects have been outsourced through Freelancer.com. Darren has been responsible for driving the architecture and design of Freelancer's technology, facing the challenges of scaling its very large cloud based services platform.

A serial entrepreneur, Darren was formerly the Chief Executive Officer and founding Chief Technology Officer at Sensory Networks, Inc., a vendor of high performance network security processors, which raised over $30MM in financing from venture capital, strategic investors and through government grants.  Prior to co-founding Sensory Networks, Darren lectured in Computer Science at the University of Sydney in a variety of areas to post-graduates and under-graduates. He had previously co-founded network security consultancy Infilsec Pty Ltd and developed software & intellectual property for Dilithium Networks, a next-generation telephony start-up. His expertise within the security area is broad and covers protocol, software, embedded and kernel level security. Darren  has authored numerous articles and papers on security vulnerabilities and networking, and has spoken at a number of international conferences. He is the co-author of over 20 US patent applications.  Dr Williams holds a first class honours degree in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Computer Science specialising in computer networking from the University of Sydney.

 

Meet the Moderator:

Valerie Khoo is a journalist and small business commentator who writes predominantly for Fairfax. She is also founder and managing director of the Sydney Writers’ Centre in Milsons Point, Australia's leading centre for writing training.  Last year, the Sydney Writers' Centre was a winner in the NSW Telstra Business Awards.  In 2009, it was named by Dell as one of the 10 most innovative small businesses in Australia. Valerie's popular Enterprise blog appears in smh.com.au, theage.com.au, watoday.com.au and brisbanetimes.com.au.

Valerie regularly moderates and hosts business events and panels around the country.

 

Please join us for a lively discussion!

 Thanks to our generous sponsors, we are able to offer this event for free!

Thank you for your attention, and please join us!

Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Australian School of Business
UNSW Kensington
www.cie.unsw.edu.au
cie@unsw.edu.au
+61 2 9385 9730

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