For Greyhound Racing Victoria (GRV), the statutory body that regulates greyhound racing in the state, a failed process running on an ageing system has the potential to cost the organisation millions in revenue. Since 2021, chief information officer Kate Romanova and her team have introduced innovations that are helping to build an industry ecosystem for greyhound racing across Australia and New Zealand.

A rules engine determines whether a greyhound is eligible to race. But it’s the deployment of a blockchain and new AI and machine learning capabilities that, in conjunction with the rules engine, are laying the foundation for GRV to better leverage the data to create a fuller picture to support racing and the welfare of the dogs.

At the CIO Sit-Down in May, Kate will discuss:

• How the blockchain helps GRV keep track of its massive data sets and make sure its information is accurate.
• How AI is being used to make data-driven decisions.
• How GRV can use biometrics to provide useful data relating to greyhound performance, health and welfare.

The high-profile cyber-attacks on Optus and Medibank in 2022 brought into focus the need for organisations across Australia to take a closer look at how they are managing cyber risk. These breaches are perfect case studies in how organisations respond to the financial and, importantly, reputational damage of cyber breaches and sale of customer information to criminals on the black market.

Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, and Allen’s partner and head of cyber, Valeska Bloch, as they discuss why your response to a cyber-attack matters more than ever.

They will discuss:

• The practical steps you need to take following a serious cyber incident, including getting extensive forensic help.
• The evolution of incident response plans, the responsibilities of technical and non-technical staff, and how teams need to work better together.
• Why there’s a need for CISOs to understand exactly what their organisations are saying internal and externally about their security posture following an attack to ensure the narrative is not misleading.
• Other ways CISOs, CEOs and other executives can improve how they communicate with stakeholders and customers after an attack to reduce reputational damage.
  

Partner session

Before launching an attack, cyber criminals will sometimes hunt around on the dark web, the badlands of the internet, to try and find information about the organisation they intend to hit. Asaf Ahmed, president at ISACA in Sydney believes that if enterprises can detect that something is brewing in the dark web, they can potentially get ahead of these criminals.

Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, as he chats to Asaf Ahmed about how your organisation can cut of these attackers as early as possible before they grab the crown jewels and sell them off. They will also discuss how agencies examining the dark web are working with governments to help them teams to try and get ahead of criminal gangs before they do real damage.

When Vanessa Lakits landed at Grace Group nine years ago, the integrated asset moving and information management provider required an overhaul and fresh approach to how they managed the implementation of compliance and to improve its compliance capabilities and better understand risk. Things have changed dramatically since then with key risk and data compliance systems automated in line with changes in recent years to Australia’s privacy and data protection laws. Lakits, who is now group manager, compliance and risk at Grace, will discuss why risk and compliance success requires a layered approach that covers technology, governance and risk, and awareness and culture. One of these aspects of compliance and risk does not work without the others, she says.

Lakits will discuss:

• The elements that are required to create a good data governance and compliance framework.
• How she worked with her team to build governance and risk systems from the ground up that help people understand what their role is when it comes to protecting the personal data of its customers.
• How Grace shares key learnings with other organisations across its supply chain.
  

Seven West Media knows that providing a dynamic user experience by bringing personalisation to its streaming platform, 7plus, is key to increasing engagement in a market where the media company is being measured against much larger players like Netflix and Disney. Director of product solutions, Will Everitt, and his team have used a ‘test and learn’ approach, utilising automation technologies, to recommend video on demand content to its customers based on their past behaviours and propensity to view particular content.

Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, as he chats to Seven West Media’s Everitt about how the organisation will build out its personalisation and UX strategy in preparation for the 2023-24 cricket season in Australia and other big events. He will discuss how the media organisation is delivering ‘next-generation television’ by creating an tailored experienced that is different from a traditional linear TV environment.

In early 2021, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) launched the first combine music and spoken word platform for Australians. LiSTNR, the digital love child of SCA’s chief technology officer, Stephen Haddad, curates audio content to audiences based on their personal tastes and routines. That year, SCA also purchased a stake in AI and ML company, SourseAI, which provides content recommendations on SCA’s app, and invested in Sonnant, which lets the media giant connect to metadata, including listener topic analysis as well as listening and marketing data.

Join Haddad as he demonstrates the LiSTNR app and describes how AI and ML technologies are used to do sentiment analysis of audio content and how this is used to drive recommendations and transfer listeners across genres. He will also discuss how SCA will roll out self-service features, using an AI bot, that enables advertisers to purchase online audio products within minutes.

Bill Gates once said: “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” Forget predicting the future, what about implementing change now? Join Paul Keen, chief technology officer at Tyro Payments who will take you through a series of practical automation and AI examples that you can use right now. To help boost productivity, fix those “pinch points” in your business and, maybe, help save your inbox.

The past three years have been tough for technology leaders. In 2020, tech teams scrambled to support workers forced out of the office environment and into their homes due to the pandemic, some organisations put the brakes on their transformation plans due to economic uncertainty while others delivered tech projects with more urgency than ever before.

Join Sit-Down’s Director of Research & Production, Byron Connolly, as he chats to three technology, data, and cyber leaders about their technology objectives for 2023