The future of DM/AI: innovation, trustworthiness and digital economies

Data to Decision: How the NSW Government Is Using AI To Enhance Government Services

Ian Oppermann

Abstract

After a long gestation, AI has finally had its day. AI driven solutions are appearing in all aspects of our digital lives, including in government. This presentation explores the NSW’s Government’s AI Assurance framework, aspects of data sharing frameworks and importantly, how the principles of the use of AI map to the practicalities of use of data and algorithms. After this session, you will have an understanding of the major components of the NSW AI Assurance framework and the dynamic tensions which underpin the mapping of the “principles to the bits”.

Dr. Ian Oppermann is the NSW Government’s Chief Data Scientist working within the Department of Customer Service. He is also an Industry Professor at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
Ian has been recognised as a Global Leader in Data and Analytics (Corinium’s Global Top 100 in 2020 and 2022) spanning the domains of government, industry, academia and standards. Ian has an MBA from the University of London and a PhD in Mobile Telecommunications from Sydney University. Ian is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia, a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW, is a Fellow and Immediate Past President of the Australian Computer Society, and a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is Chair of Australia’s IEC National Committee and JTC1, the NSW AI Review Committee and the NSW Smart Places Advisory Council.

AI: our co-pilot in a complex world

Stela Solar

Abstract

TBA

Stela Solar is passionate about removing barriers to positive technology adoption and engagement. Over the past 15 years, Stela has cultivated expertise in capturing new revenue opportunities presented by emerging technologies, particularly through business model transformation. With most recent experience as Global Director of AI Solutions Sales and Strategy at Microsoft, Stela’s experiences across business development, strategy, ecosystem development, marketing and product management inform her insights surrounding cross-organisational factors affecting an organisation’s ability to capture an advantage. Stela has returned to Australia after seven years in the US to join CSIRO and lead the National AI Centre.

Battle for Control and Use of Data

Anthony Wong

Abstract

Our economy has been moving from the physical world dominated by tangibles to one motivated by ‘bits’, ‘waves’, ‘droplets’, databases and big data (intangibles). Correspondingly, the values that define the wealth of our society are also shifting from the tangible to the Digital Economy. As our society’s dependence on the Digital Economy increases, it has heightened the debate on the ‘propertisation’ and ‘commoditisation’ of data.

Who has access to and control over data? Is it the government, the users or the service providers who store the data?

Many countries have adopted measures that restrict the cross-border transfer of data, such as data localization laws, and personal data protection laws. There is no global agreement or convention, and regulators take different approaches within national borders.

Recent misadventures including the Australian #Robodebt scandal and the #Robodebt royal commission have reignited the debate on how algorithms and data matching are used to inform decisions, in both the public and private sector, and the need to ensure that human judgment continues to play a role.

As the battle lines for the control and use of digital data are being drawn, policies need to balance between the many vested interests. What is the fair balance to ensure that the various rights of parties are respected such as human dignity, privacy and identity, the private sector interests- such as profits, the interests of competing third parties, and the interests of the public to access and use data?

Anthony Wong is the President of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) www.ifip.org, headquartered in Austria established under the auspices of UNESCO in 1960. Anthony is the Managing Director of AGW Legal & Advisory, a multidisciplinary legal and advisory practice advising in many areas of emergent 4th Industrial technologies and the law including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual and Augmented Reality, the Internet of Things (IoT), Digital Transformation, Cloud and Blockchain, Law and regulatory systems, Cybersecurity, Privacy and data protection, and Intellectual Property protection and management.

Anthony is an experienced CIO and Information Technology Lawyer, and has held senior management positions in multinational corporations and government. He has advised on and managed many of the legal, technological challenges, policy and regulatory issues confronting business and government. As CIO for the Australian Tourist Commission he spearheaded the organization through the era of digital marketing during the Sydney 2000 Olympics and led the digital transformation of Thomson in the Asia Pacific. Anthony served on the IT Industry Innovation Council for the Australian Government. He also chaired the NSW Government ICT Advisory Panel and served on the NSW Digital Transformation Taskforce. He is a Past President of the Australian Computer Society (ACS), an Honorary Life Member and Fellow of the Australian Computer Society and Past President of SEARCC – a confederation of technology professional associations in the Asia Pacific region.

Anthony graduated with double degrees in Computer Science and Law from Monash University, Master of Laws in Media, Communications and IT from University of New South Wales and a Master of Intellectual Property from University Technology Sydney. He is a regular commentator and presenter on topical issues on various print and online media, radio and TV, and speaker at various national and international forums including at the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva.

Challenges and opportunities of DM/AI in key sectors (healthcare, environmental and social good, cybersecurity)

Human Centred Cyber Security

Giovanni Russello

Abstract

Phishing attacks are expected to cost the global economy US$25 billion in 2022 alone, and that number is only projected to go up. Within 10 years, global costs related to ransomware – often installed following successful phishing attacks – are projected to balloon to US$300 billion a year. With our research, we are hoping to change that.
Until now, most work aimed at stopping phishing has focused on technological fixes or on what Russello calls “blame-the-user” approaches. The problem is, neither approach is doing enough.
Technological approaches have undeniably had an impact. Spam filters and similar tools stop about 90 percent of malicious emails. But that still leaves 10 percent. Given the sheer volume of phishing email (160 million of phishing emails per day!), most people are still confronting potentially dangerous emails on a daily or near-daily basis.
Current user-based interventions aren’t solving the problem either. Certainly, education can help people learn to recognise signs an email may be suspicious. However, 65 percent of companies that have been victims of phishing attacks had previously performed some form of training, says Russello.
With my team, we want to focus on something new: the individuals involved and the circumstances in which they receive and deal with phishing attacks.

Dr Giovanni Russello is an Associate Professor and the Head of the School of Computer Science at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Giovanni is the Director of the Cyber Security Research Programme, a multi-million project funded by MBIE to improve the cyber security stance of NZ and increase the collaboration between NZ and AU researchers. He is the founding Co-Director of the Cyber Security Foundry, the first New Zealand multi-disciplinary centre in Cyber Security aiming at improving the collaboration between industry and academia. Between 2013 and 2014, he was the founding CEO of a start-up targeting the smartphone security market. His research interests include human-centred cyber security, policy-based security systems, privacy and confidentiality in cloud computing, smartphone security, and applied cryptography.

Empower people and business through data science in Genesis Energy

Lin-Yi Chou

Abstract

Data can help business gain valuable insights such as better predicting demand, more accurate sales forecasts, predicting maintenance time for power plant equipment, and so on.  But there are limits to what numbers and charts can do on their own; Opportunities or answers to business problems don’t just spring from algorithms, they need people to translate the information into compelling stories. So in order to empower people and the business through data science, I propose a number of steps to unlock the little data scientist living inside each of us.

Lin-Yi has been at Genesis Energy in Hamilton for 16 years, having started as an analyst after finishing her PhD in data mining at the University of Waikato in 2007.  She was initially tasked with helping to improve the validation of energy consumption – the amount of times an electricity meter needs to be re-read – to provide accurate meter data. Since then she’s undertaken several other data science projects including a workbench for predictive plant maintenance.  During this work she noticed that many of the Subject Matter Experts she is dealing with just need a little nudge, education, and the appropriate tool to become Citizen Data Scientists mining their own valuable information from the data.

Robust Human Behaviour Modelling

Flora Salim

Abstract

Understanding human behaviours is critical to improving operation efficiency, individual and organisational productivity, public health management, and quality of life in cities. The proliferation of sensors and Internet of Things leads to new opportunities and challenges for human behaviour modelling and forecasting behavioural patterns at scale. How to leverage the rich information from human behaviours, towards developing personalised AI assistant for individuals and robust AI for decision making systems for organisations? I will cover some of the challenges and our initial solutions in training predictive models that are robust to the highly dynamic behaviours in the urban environments, including due to unseen events and shifts in the behaviours. I will present our recent innovative approaches on natural language generation for mobility forecasting in cities. Several open issues including the explainability and robustness of AI-based decision making systems in the urban environments will also be discussed, with examples drawn from realworld smart city, smart building, and intelligent assistant projects.

Professor Flora Salim is the CISCO Chair of Digital Transport, School of Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW Sydney. Her research, on behaviour modelling, AI and machine learning on time-series and spatio-temporal sensor data, has been funded by the ARC, Humboldt Foundation, Bayer Foundation, Microsoft Research, Qatar National Research Fund, and many local and international industry partners. She won the Women in AI Awards 2022 ANZ – Defence and Intelligence category. She is a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts, a Chief Investigator of ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society, an Honorary Professor of RMIT University, a member of ACM UbiComp Steering Commitee, an editorial board member of ACM Transactions on Spatial Algorithms and Systems, Pervasive and Mobile Computing, Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), and Nature Scientific Reports. She obtained her PhD from Monash University in 2009.

Government

The sleeping giant – The promise of public sector AI

Rohan Samaraweera

Abstract

With privileged access to key resources required thrive – Data, Expertise, Infrastructure – the public sector should more influential in the AI domain. However unlike previous transformations such as aviation, communications and the internet, governments organisations continue to lag behind industry counterparts. Using new approaches and contemporary technologies the public sector can modernise AI/ML capabilities to support a broader range of services, create immense public good and transform into a new, ‘digital’ model of government.  

Rohan Samaraweera leads the Data Science branch at the Department Of Home Affairs. The branch was established in 2019 to mature, modernise and broaden Department artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science capabilities.  Under his leadership the branch has evolved into an agile and adaptive team leveraging the unique data, expertise, and intersecting missions within the Department to create public good. The branch continues to expand its analytics capabilities and services to support a broader range of portfolio areas, domestic and international partners.

Rohan maintains a strong focus on impact of AI and digital technologies on government institutions, AI ethics and public sector innovation challenges. He is also a committed advocate of building public sector human capability through vocational training pathways and non-traditional talent pipelines.

Prior to joining Home Affairs in 2016, Rohan had a career as a Signals Intelligence Officer with the Australian Signals Directorate, operating in the nexus between data, technology and intelligence tradecraft in support of military and counter-terrorism operations.

Women in DM/AI

Panelists:

Feng Chen

Distinguished Professor, Executive Director UTS Data Science & UTS Data Science Institute, University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Yun Sing Koh

Associate Professor, School of Computer Science, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Nandita Sharma

Director – Data Products and Cloud, Australian Taxation Office

Dilusha Weeraddana

Manager | Business Consulting, Ernst & Young

Annelies Tjetjep

Director – Data & Analytics, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Kimberly Beebe

Enterprise Business Development Manager, Aginic