What Does it Take? Science, Art, Wonder

Emeritus Professor Bruce Milthorpe is the former Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Technology Sydney (2008-2016). He has 30 years experience in biomedical engineering, and 15 years senior leadership in tertiary education. Bruce is also a former director at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, an Editorial Board member for the International Journal Materials Science: Materials in Medicine. In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering, and in 2014 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society New South Wales. Bruce is the Chair of the Board at Culture at Work an art-science research centre in Pyrmont.

Jennie Feyen is an artist-filmmaker based in Sydney who has an interest in screen-based work and video projection. Her portfolio consists of art films, documentaries, video installations and projection art in which she explores the psychology of connection and it’s many manifestations: one’s connection with his or her environment, sexuality, culture and fears, as well as the process of creating new connections with unfamiliar territories; both physical and spiritual. Jennie's project 'Beneath The Surface' was a collaboration with local marine biologists from a range of universities through a Culture at Work in an art-science residency.

Nigel Andrade is Global Lead Partner, Customer Value & Pivotal Customer Events Labs at A.T. Kearney. Nigel will share his expertise on the topic 'The Business of Creativity' at Culture at Work's event Science, Wonder, Art - What does it Take?.

Professor Roy Green is Dean of the UTS Business School at the University of Technology Sydney. He graduated with First Class Honours from the University of Adelaide and has a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. Subsequently, he worked in universities, business and government, published widely in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship and undertaken multi-country projects with the OECD and European Commission. He was recently appointed part-time Chair of the Queensland Competition Authority, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA) and Fellow of the Irish Academy of Management (FIAM). He was previously Dean of the Macquarie Graduate School of Management and the business school at National University of Ireland, Galway, where he was also Vice President for Research.

Professor Green chaired the Australian Government’s Innovative Regions Centre, CSIRO Manufacturing Sector Advisory Council and NSW Manufacturing Council, and he served on the Prime Minister’s Manufacturing Taskforce and Australian Bureau of Statistics Innovation Reference Group. He conducted the Australian Government’s 2008 review of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear industries, led Australian participation in a global study of management and productivity, and coordinated an Australian Business Deans Council initiative on the future of management education, with a focus on entrepreneurial capacity building in universities and related innovation ecosystems. Most recently, Prof Green has contributed to publications on productivity, skills and innovation, including a major CEDA report on Australia’s future workforce, and a ‘Reimagining NSW’ project for the NSW Governor and NSW Vice Chancellors Committee. He was expert adviser to the Senate Economic References Committee’s Innovation System Inquiry and has joined the project steering group of the new Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC), research advisory committee of the Centre for Policy Development and an international reference group for the UK Commission on Economic Justice.  

The theme I have in mind is "Behind the Silicon Curtain". I believe that all technology can be beautiful, but there is a tragic difference between mechanical and electronic technology: you can open up a watch and see the gears, you can look inside an engine and watch the pistons, but how do you open up a computer program to see what's inside? The only people who can are those with years of training, but there's no reason this has to be the case. I'd like to find ways to draw back the silicon curtain and show others the beauty I can see in software.

Professor Judith Smith is the dean of science at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She is a biological scientist trained at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, before completing postdoctoral research on malaria at Imperial College.

Professor Smith has vast experience in leadership roles and was a member of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Panel of Chairs — a body comprised of top scientists in the field. She was also the president of the British Society for Parasitology.

Her research interests are on the relationship between parasite diversity, transmission and disease. 

Louise is a senior executive with a strong mix of experience in the not-for-profit, government and private sectors. A former solicitor at Allens, she has spent most of her career in sport, arts, culture and philanthropy. Louise was recently the CEO of Philanthropy Australia, the peak body for philanthropy in Australia.

Evan Shellshear is the chief commercial officer at Ebex. He is a commercialization and innovation expert who has worked with and delivered cutting edge software solutions to both Forbes 500 companies and SMEs. Evan has founded or been a part of commercializing more than half a dozen technologies and ideas and is an entrepreneur with innovation, design and product development. Evan is the author of the bestselling book Innovation Tools and developer of the highly successful children's game Bug Rope on Google Play, and the creator of a printable keyboard and joins us from Melbourne to speak at this event.

Brad Lorge is an entrepreneur, computer scientist and advocate for socially driven business, and was announced as the “Hills Young Innovator of the Year” for 2015. Brad founded Foodbank Local — a technology platform which utilises real-time constraints optimisation to improve logistics in the foodbanking sector. Brad is currently working with his co-founders on Premonition, which combines a new approach to real-time optimisation of logistics fleets with predictive big data technology — a first for the logistics industry. Premonition and Foodbank Local have been featured in Australian and international publications, including SBS World News, ABC Big Ideas, The Wall Street Journal (Print and Online), The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and Gizmodo.

MICROBEPLASTICA - ARTISTS STATEMENT (catalogue excerpt).

This exhibition in the Anthropocene era takes a look the crossover of science as fact and art practice as representation. This journey was implemented to discover the lasting impact of plastic consumerism on our ecosystem and how our own environment can adapt. My interest is in understaning what we are faced with and what is at the forefront of scientific research regarding the possibility of a plastic-eating bacterium that could assist in solving the urgent pollution issues of plastic litter in our waterways.

For this residency, the research focus was to target single-use packaging as a surface for bacteria to adhere. It led to the discovery that a study on polypropoleyne (PP) ws already being investigated. Polypropylene, also known as (PP) today, is moulded or extruded into many plastic products where toughness, flexibility, heat resistance and lightweight is required. I followed leading researchers at RMIT University on a journey to their micro world.

This experience made possible by the CULTURE AT WORK Art-Science Residency program, has prompted future collaboration in communicating further progress made towards locating the existence of an underwater plastic-eating bacterium.

SCIENTIST STATEMENT (catalogue excerpt).

Fantastic Plastic has transformed and significantly benefited our global society over the last sixty years. However, research from across the world over the last decade has revealed coutnry size oceanic plastic garbage pathces, millions of pieces of plastic on uninhabited Pacific islands and major environmental impacts upon our aquatic and marine life, as discarded and waste plastics flood into our aquatic environments. Notably most of this plastic is now present in small fragments (microplastics) of a few millimetres in size or smaller, which can readily enter the aquatic food chain.