FUTURE OF SERVICES | CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE DATA INNOVATION | TECHNOLOGY AND SECURITY

The front face of eGovernment was on full display during Australia’s ‘year of crises’, as citizens in lockdown reflexively sought out digital services for information, support, and solutions to maintain lives and livelihoods. While the Australian Government did, in large part, deliver a swift pivot to digital, the two-pronged crises of Covid and ‘Black Summer’ bushfires exposed some glaring gaps in service delivery.

The Federal Budget has aimed to address longstanding deficiencies in key front-line functions, including Medicare’s and Centrelink’s payments and assessments systems, digital credentialing, and the eHealth records system, MyHealthRecord. Yet, it is in the back-end where true innovation spawns, with cloud migration, agile development methodologies, and core legacy systems overhauls critical to enabling front-end transformation.

The 2021 FST Government Australia conference, in Canberra, brings together esteemed digital thought leaders and technologists from Australia and across the globe, exploring the Federal Government’s digital innovation pipeline, its frontline service and back-end infrastructure priorities, and systems architectures to support process efficiency and citizen service goals.

Among the key themes we’ll cover in 2021 include:

• The federal government’s Covid response and tech-fuelled recovery
• Addressing the evolving complexity of critical infrastructure, legacy systems, and tech debt
• Citizen first strategy
• Digital service design, delivery, and transformation
• Cybersecurity for modern realities: how people come together with technology to strengthen frontlines
• Data governance and privacy mandates
• Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and automation strategy – making the leap to augmented, predictive government
• Cloud migration and the shift into multi-cloud environments
• Omnichannel services and platforms

We are proud to work with an ever-increasing and diverse line-up of leaders from across Australia's Public Sector and Industry.

DAY ONE- 11 NOVEMBER

08:55 DAY ONE OPENING REMARKS BY CONFERENCE CHAIR

Paul Cooper, Former A/Director, Digital Health, Victorian Department of Health and Human Services

09:00 OPENING INTERNATIONAL KEYNOTE
​Leading Digital Change & Transformation

• How can organisations pivot to drive impactful transformation?
• How do we lead digital change in the current fast changing business environment?
• What are the steps to cultivating an innovative culture?  

Sharon Ng, Chief Information Officer & Cluster Director, GovTech Singapore

09:15 EXECUTIVE THINK TANK

APS Leadership & Transformation Amidst a Rapidly-Changing Environment

• How do you plan transformation for a future we don’t understand?
• Overcoming the squeeze on resourcing: how do we transform employee life cycles?
• Curating a new ecosystem of talent: how do we head off skills gaps critical to hybrid workforces and the digitally literate organisation?
• How can agencies learn from each other to collaborate across the APS?

Chris Fechner, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Transformation Agency Garth McDonald, Assistant Secretary - Aged Care Transformation and Quality Systems Branch, Department of Health
​Rina Bruinsma, First Assistant Commissioner, Australian Public Service Commission
​Mat Rogers, Chief Information Technology Officer, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Chris Ellis, Director Solution Engineering, Nintex

09:50 TRANSFORMATION KEYNOTE

The Path to Secure Digital Transformation in the Public Sector

Gary Griffiths, Federal Director, ServiceNow

10:10 PEER TO PEER DISCUSSION ONE

10:45 INTERMISSION

11:00 INNOVATION IN DATA EXCHANGE

Public Value Delivery, Protection, and Privacy: Enhancing our Data Futures

• How is data delivering greater public value in Australia right now?
• How do remote futures change our approach to handling, analysing and leveraging information?
• How do we enable and protect data sharing as our relationship with technology evolves?
• Trust and confidence: how do we balance the benefits and risks of data?

Marek Rucinski, Smarter Data Program Deputy Commissioner, Australian Taxation Office
​Susan Calvert, Assistant Secretary, Office of the National Data Commissioner Marcel van Kints, Chief Data Officer and General Manager Data Strategy, Integration and Services Division, Australian Bureau of Statistics
​Dimitar Dimitrovski, Assistant Secretary Data Platforms and Education Systems, Department of Education, Skills and Employment
​Ray Greenwood, Domain Lead – Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, SAS

11:35 CLOUD SERVICES KEYNOTE

Leading Change – Delivering Value to Citizens Through Next Generation Apps and Cloud

• How to modernize apps faster to support new citizen services
• How to deliver applications across multiple clouds
• How you can do all this while maintaining resiliency, security and governance

Simon Caruso, Chief Technologist, Federal Government and Public Sector, VMware

11:55 PEER TO PEER DISCUSSION TWO

12:30 TECHNOLOGY KEYNOTE

Secure Digital Transformation Through Zero Trust

Progressive IT leaders are driving digital transformation. They are embracing cloud, mobility, AI, IOT and OT technologies to make organisations and agencies more secure, agile and flexible. Join this keynote to learn:

• The risks of a legacy of hub and spoke network, including both security and business risks
• The challenges with VPN and Firewall to secure your business and provide access to information
• The new zero trust approach to provide user to app, app to app, and machine to machine communications over any network and any location
• How DFAT is protecting and enhancing the user experience of 10,000 staff at the Department using zero trust and modern workplace principles

Budd Ilic, Regional Director for Government, Zscaler

12:50 CITIZEN-FIRST PANEL DISCUSSION

APS Learning Lessons: Transformation of Digital Service Delivery and Customer Experience

• Citizen-centricity: how do we deliver personalised, inclusive and accessible services across government?
• Understanding touchpoints: how to reevaluate engagement channels to enable consistent, meaningful and contextual two-way conversations?
• How do we equip today’s workforce with the skills and tools to reduce friction as they engage with citizens?
• Data & information flow: What role do interoperating agencies play in excelling service delivery?

Matt Clarke, GM, Digital Services, Services Australia
​Yaso Arumugam, Assistant Director-General Data and Digital, CIO, CISO, National Archives of Australia
​Jessica Hamilton, GM, Digital Innovation and Client Development, Australian Trade and Investment Commission
​Darren Whitelaw, Chief Customer Officer, Service Victoria
​Ken MacDonald, Public Sector Lead, Smart Communications

13:30 END OF DAY ONE

DAY TWO- 12 NOVEMBER

08:55 DAY TWO OPENING REMARKS BY CONFERENCE CHAIR

09:00 INTERNATIONAL KEYNOTE

Defending the NHS: Covid-19 Cyber Initiatives to Support Critical Digital Health Services

Neil Bennett, Chief Information Security Officer, NHS Digital (UK National Health Service)

09:20 CYBER & TECH LEADERS PANEL DISCUSSION

Tackling the Latest Federal Government Cyber Challenges to Secure Operations, Services and Critical Infrastructure

• How do we shift to an enabling as opposed to a blocking mentality?
• How do we improve alignment between mandated cyber policies and the specific priorities of our organisational contexts?
• In a world of real-time accessibility and exposure in the cloud; what key steps protect operational frontlines, networks and infrastructure?
• How do we help cyber matter more to digital and remote workforces through comprehensive awareness programs led by versatile technology groups?

Hamish Hansford, Group Manager and Head Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre, Department of Home Affairs Sam Mackay, Director ICT Security Operations, NSW Department of Customer Service
​David Fairman, Chief Security Officer, Netskope | Partner & CISO-in-residence, SixThirty

09:50 DATA KEYNOTE

The Future of Data Sharing Within Government and Beyond
​The recent national data sharing agreement paves the way for availability and transparency of data across jurisdictions. Agencies need to implement data sharing models that connect providers and consumers, enable discovery and understanding of data, ensure quality and timeliness of data, and make it readily available for a variety of workload types.

However it also states that sharing is to be done “safely, securely and lawfully” - which is, of course, a key concern and challenge for data providers. The same data sharing models that push for availability and transparency also need to enforce sufficient controls around authorisation and access, and ensure the principles of privacy are adhered to.

This session will introduce the concept of the Data Cloud from Snowflake and show how it addresses the challenges outlined above.

Alan Eldridge, Vice-President, Solutions Engineering, Snowflake

10:10 PEER TO PEER DISCUSSION THREE

10:45 INTERMISSION

11:00 SECURITY KEYNOTE

“Zero Trust” the Future of Security

• Defining Zero Trust and Current Challenges
• How to Augment your Zero Trust Strategy
• What you Need to be Successful

Chris Cruz, Chief Information Officer, Tanium

11:20 PEER TO PEER DISCUSSION FOUR

11:55 IT MODERNISATION KEYNOTE

Roadmap to Legacy IT Modernisation

In our current, post-pandemic environment, Government IT Modernization has reached a tipping point, with new funding opportunities and technologies in place to jumpstart progress toward the future state of government IT. However, the effort to modernize and transform aging legacy applications remains a complicated task that requires the enablement of high-velocity application delivery with the ability to continuously produce new features and capabilities at scale.

Join us to hear how governments can capitalize on this renewed momentum to boost the efficiency and performance of their department’s IT systems. The session will explore the latest challenges being faced by the government and how they plan to modernize the current technology within the current climate.

Brian Chidester, Global Strategist for Public Sector, OpenText

12:15 US HEALTH INTERNATIONAL KEYNOTE

Digital Health IT Lessons - the U.S. Perspective

Elise Anthony, Executive Director of Policy, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

12:35 INTERNATIONAL KEYNOTE

Modernising the VA's Digital Experience: Our Journey and Lessons Learned

Charles Worthington, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs

12:55 CLOSING REMARKS FROM CHAIRPERSON AND END OF CONFERENCE

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Building a Connected Government Enterprise

• How do people who have repeatable tasks to perform get things done and respond to customer needs?
• What are the challenges with current approaches in a hybrid work environment and how can these be resolved?
• This session will explore what has been learned in the past year and how connecting people and processes using digital workflows delivers better outcomes

John Asquith, Head of Innovation, Government, ServiceNow
​Gov Cohosts: David Wong, Chief Information Officer, National Library of Australia (P2P 1,3)
​David Whiteman, A/g Assistant Secretary Corporate and Case Systems Branch, Department of Home Affairs (P2P 3,4)

Security Intelligence for a Secure Government

• Governments have a unique set of concerns not only having to worry about employees but also constituents, what are some of the threats governments should be monitoring for?
• How do you gain operational efficiencies, optimise cost and reduce cyber risk exposure?
• How do government agencies use online tools more securely to enhance digital transformation efforts and improve citizen services?

Allan Liska, Senior Security Architect and Ransomware Specialist, Recorded Future
​Gov Cohost: Mitch Riley-Meijer, Director, Strategic Cyber Initiatives, Department of Parliamentary Services

Transforming Government Service Delivery

• Making access to Government services easier by closing the last digital mile.
• Enabling Government employees to collaborate and execute critical documents anywhere, anytime, on any device.
• Providing Government employees time back for meaningful tasks, automating digital document workflows.
• Ensuring that document workflows and e-signatures are integrated, secure and compliant.  

Nicholas York, ANZ Head of Adobe Sign for Government, Adobe Sign

Keeping Applications Secure in Rapidly Changing Environments

• How to deploy new applications faster with zero-trust network automation
• Building networks to support hybrid-cloud strategies
• Ensuring consistent security policies across public clouds

Bisham Kishnani, Technology Director - Networking & Security, Asia Pacific, VMware

Employee Experience in a Digital Agency

• How to enable and deliver an empowering workplace experience 
• Unpacking the necessary infrastructure to support a modern agile workforce
• How to secure employee’s remote work environments with a zero-trust strategy

Andrew Fox, Director of Anywhere Workplace, VMware
​Gov Cohost: Vinay Khadabadi, A/g Assistant Secretary Shared Services and Technology, Department of Veterans' Affairs (P2P 3,4)

Delivering Value to Citizens Through Hybrid Cloud and Next Generation Apps

• How to realise cloud’s many benefits while balancing key challenges of cost, risk and time when modernising existing on-prem applications
• How to achieve cloud maturity while maintaining resiliency, security and governance
• How to define a successful hybrid cloud transformation strategy for your agency

Simon Caruso, Client Technology Director and Chief Technologist for Public Sector, VMware
​Cohost: Matt Boyley, Partner, Terrace Services

Identity Centric Zero Trust for the Hybrid Workforce

• Implementing a zero trust identity strategy
• Is the hybrid work environment the new normal
• Trends in threats organisations are seeing and how they are mitigating them

Ravi Jayaprakash, Senior Solution Engineer, Okta

Evolving Your Identity: Is Access Management Your Transformation Bottleneck?

• Why have good identity and access governance is vital in an era of multi-cloud environments and the risks associated with maintaining legacy IAM platforms.
• How adopting multi-cloud and hybrid IT infrastructure solutions can potentially create access management issues that inhibit monitoring of identities across your network.
• How your organisation is meeting its security and identity governance objectives as you move more services to the cloud and your infrastructure becomes more complex.

John Vine Hall, Regional Vice President, ANZ, Saviynt

Moving Securely to the Cloud

• Why is the traditional centralised Secure Internet Gateway approach not suitable for a cloud and mobile future?
• What is a Zero Trust Network Architecture and how can we achieve it?
• How to deliver the best end user experience?

Budd Ilic, Regional Director, Government, Zscaler
​Gov Cohost: Barney O'Connell, User Experience Section, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Creating a Data-Driven Culture in Government

• How are Government Agencies using data to redefine how they deliver services and interact with the public?
• How are Public Sector Agencies able to see and understand what is happening around them and make informed decisions during every stage of a crisis?
• How can Governments truly transform and fully leverage data and analytics technology investments?

Rachel Smith-Cianchi, Regional Vice President, Public Sector, Tableau ANZ
​Gov Cohosts: Rosalyn Bell, Assistant Commissioner, Productivity Commission (P2P 1)
​Susan Calvert, Assistant Secretary, Office of the National Data Commissioner (P2P 2,4)

Enabling Customer Conversations and Staff Engagement Post Covid

• How to achieve tangible process improvements and reduce costs, while improving citizen & staff experience? 
• How to provide greater personalisation, more convenience, and fewer barriers as customers engage with your department?
• How to ensure Staff can streamline conversations and improve efficiencies when servicing citizen requests?

Ken MacDonald, Public Sector Lead, Smart Communications
​Gov cohost: Katherine Rhodes, Branch Manager, Front-Line Digital Experience, National Disability Insurance Agency (P2P 3,4)

Defend And Rapidly Recover From Ransomware Attacks

Although no organization is immune from cybercriminals’ attempts to take control of its data, agencies can do more to mitigate the threat. Join this roundtable session and learn how fed, state and local governments can quickly respond and recover from a ransomware attack by:

• Being prepared for cyberattacks by adopting more than just perimeter defence 
• Understanding why backups are a critical part of agencies’ overall security posture 
• Recovering quickly to minimize lost data and business impact

Adam Gabriel, Senior System Engineer, Cohesity

Unleashing the Power of Data and Analytics

Data analytics within government has the potential to enhance the delivery of services and transform the public sector.  As the role of data analytics grows exponentially, it’s vital for government organisations to ensure that their data remains visible, interconnected, and secure.

• How to ensure data quality
• How to foster a data centric culture
• How to extract valuable insights from data sets

Kevin Singh, Government Lead, Alteryx

A Cloud Smart Framework for a Hybrid World

• Setting realistic goals for digital transformation projects
• An application-first approach to be digitally agile & cloud smart
• Designing the right bespoke hybrid cloud solution to ensure flexibility and modernization

George Dragatsis, ANZ Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi Vantara (P2P 1,3)
​Adrian Johnson, Vice President & General Manger ANZ for Digital Infrastructure, Hitachi Vantara (P2P 2,4)
​Cohost: Mark Turner, Digital Infrastructure Sales Director ANZ, Hitachi Vantara (P2P 3,4)

We're here to support you

If you would like to propose another way in which FST Government can help you succeed, we'd love to hear it.

We'll endeavour to respond to you within 24-48 hours.

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For sponsorship enquiries:

Chris Da Ros, General Manager and Sales Director

T: + 61 2 8484 0906 | M: +61 475 445 345 | E: [email protected]

For delegate enquiries:

Rebecca Murphy, Head of Customised Events & Audience Development

T: +61 2 8484 0945 | M: +61 432 549 542 | E: [email protected]

For speaker enquiries:

Patrick Joy, Senior Conference Producer

T: +61 2 8484 0996 | M: +61 421 427 338 | E: [email protected]

For event and marketing enquiries:

Vidya Gopinath, Head of Operations

T: +61 2 8484 0916 | M: +61 413 707 905 | E: [email protected]

Bringing Government and Industry together

FST Government is tailored specifically for digital government decision-makers within the Australian and New Zealand public sector, with content specifically curated to address service delivery challenges in the digital age.

Each year we work with leaders from across the Public Sector to conduct in-depth program research to bring a relevant, engaging and topical agenda that focuses on digital transformation in government.

Our programs feature senior leaders at the forefront of public sector innovation and offer unparalleled opportunities for public sector leaders to have in-depth discussions with their peers across government, both local and international, and walk away with actionable insights.

This invitation-only series of events creates a unique environment for senior government executives to provide departmental updates, share best practice case studies, and have comprehensive discussions surrounding implementation and execution.