Inspiring the Next Generation of Creative, Entrepreneurial and Digital Women

Kate Burleigh is Managing Director for Intel Australia/ New Zealand. 

Kate is passionate about the potential for technology to vastly improve how we live, work, and play within this increasingly connected world.

She is a strong advocate for boosting science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) education and supports the need for smart government policy and industry leadership on how we harness technology to drive innovation.  

Felicity co-founded Power of Engineering in 2012 after realizing the lack of diversity in engineering. Since then, the organization has inspired over 3,000 year 9 and 10 high school students across Australia about diverse, creative and innovative engineering careers.

Felicity has been named by the Australian Financial Review and Westpac Bank in the 100 Women of Influence, received the Queensland young leader award from the National Association of Women in Construction and was selected as a Young Social Pioneer with the Foundation for Young Australians.

Felicity is a Founding Director of Machinam which is creating alternatives to traditional textbooks with a vision to increase diversity and innovation in STEM. Machinam uses the latest in app technology and a real world approach to framing problems to help students to connect what they are learning in class to their real life and future career pathways.

Felicity has a background in Civil Engineering and works as a Senior Project Manager with Arup in their Sydney office. Felicity is passionate about engineers creating an innovative and inclusive world. 

Sunny is the Teacher Librarian at Sydney Secondary College Leichhardt Campus and the Secretary of the School Library Association of New South Wales. She is a BOSTES accredited Highly Accomplished Teacher. Combining skills in teacher librarianship and technology integration,

Sunny has been instrumental in her school and across the SLANSW network highlighting the need for technology and the maker movement to be embedded in school culture.

She has worked with students to create a technology leadership group who learn, lead and mentor both students and teachers. At Sydney Secondary College Sunny has instigated a girls and technology program that excites girls into learning and sharing new technology skills.

Sunny has been a presenter at conferences and mentors other teacher librarians to create future focussed libraries and learning spaces in schools. 

Karsten is the Program Director of Digital Careers with offices in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and Townsville. Karsten holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Queensland, and a BA Electrical Engineering from Furtwangen University in Germany.

Digital Careers is an Australian government backed, independent program aimed at positively engaging students, parents and teachers in digital technology. We want these groups to consider and support careers in digital technology in order to future-proof Australia’s workforce.
We do this by:

• Articulating the full breadth of the digital technology Industry and the opportunities it offers both for users and creators of technology

• Collaborating with our partners to deliver fun, experiential activities for yrs3-12 students that create positive engagement with digital technology

• Enabling teachers to deliver attractive technology curricula, through training courses, webinars and conferences

Sarah Moran is the co-founder of Girl Geek Academy.

Girl Geek Academy is teaching one million women to get into tech and launch their own startups by 2025. Girl Geek Academy run the all-female hackathon #SheHacks, bring women together to explore 3D printing and wearable tech at the first all-female makerfest #SheMakes and get more women into game development through #SheMakes_Games and #SheJams (debuting November 2016).

A digital marketer by trade, she has established and developed social media strategy for iconic Australian brands including Virgin Australia, Austrade, Brisbane City Council, Tourism Queensland and Tourism Victoria. Sarah has worked on award-winning global campaigns and given away some amazing things, including a year of study in Australia, flights around the world and she once even gave away a million bucks.

Abi is currently working in Teaching and Learning Innovation in the Junior School at Roseville College. In a world of rapidly changing technology, Abi has been working with staff to research and explore deep learning opportunities utilising various technologies and pedagogies. Abi is a passionate educator, who is a power user of technology to connect with others and to extend professional practice. She runs a variety of Clubs to provide opportunities for the students at her school to develop skills through coding, Makerspace, Robotics and tinkering.

Abi is a Google Certified Innovator, an Adobe Campus leader and regularly presents at workshops and conferences including TeachMeet, Future Schools, IB International Conference, AIS Integrators conference, Google Summits, Google Teacher Academy and ICTENSW (ICT Educators).

Cathie is a passionate educator excited by all the new possibilities that the creative application of current and emerging technology has to enable innovative learning design that develops the skills and mindsets needed for the 21st century.

Cathie has taught for over 20 years in NSW in both the public and private sector of education with learners of all ages and abilities. She has been recognised for her work in digital learning and awarded for her innovative practice.

Since 2012, Cathie has managed Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre, a collaboration between the NSW Department of Education and Macquarie University. She leads the development and state-wide delivery of professional learning services, student workshops and research projects related to the innovative integration of technology into learning and teaching. Additionally, Cathie collaborates with industry partners on a range of projects and services and is an adjunct lecturer working with both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Zeina is a dynamic educator and international speaker with teaching experience in primary schools and university. In her role as Leader of Learning & Innovation at St Finbar’s Primary School, Zeina leads ‘disruptive’ change in digital pedagogy and personalised learning - creatively integrating technology and design thinking to transform learning experiences and connect communities of learners.

In 2015, Zeina was awarded the Brother John Taylor Fellow Research Prize for her work in exploring innovative ways to develop creative thinking through a STEAM curriculum in a Makerspace. She also won a ‘New Voice in Leadership’ Scholarship from ACEL for her work in digital pedagogy, gifted education and edtech mentoring with pre-service and beginning teachers.

Zeina is a co-founder of #aussieED - Australia’s largest educational professional learning network on Twitter and was awarded the EduBlog 2015 Awards for the Best Individual Tweeter Category. She writes for Educational Technology Solutions magazine and has facilitated workshops at a number of educational conferences and events including SXSWedu and Edutech. This year Zeina will be keynoting about Makerspaces & STEAM by Design at the DATTA conference and National Education Summit.

Connect with her @ZeinaChalich @MakerEDau 

Luna Pandiella-McLeod is a Year 6 student of St.Finbar's Primary School who is passionate about STEAM and design thinking. She is a Girl Guide, Coder and micro hacker, often taking part in community events such as RHOK Sydney (Random Hacks of Kindness) to help solve authentic problems alongside UX designers and computer programmers.

She enjoys using design thinking in the Makerspace to work on challenging STEAM projects because it allows for creative thinking and inventiveness. Learning in a Makerspace has given her great confidence and opportunities to learn about computer science, engineering and the role of empathy in the real world. Luna believes all girls must resist the stereotype and be encouraged to pursue their dreams in the area of STEAM.

Luna, together with her Maker Mentors from school have presented their work at the Australian Catholic University and hosted an Eat, Pray, Make session for parents and teachers.