AI and the future of governance

Born in South Africa, Prof. Hovy completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) at Yale University in 1987 and was awarded honorary doctorates from the National Distance Education University (UNED) in Madrid in 2013 and the University of Antwerp in 2015. 

Prof. Hovy’s research focuses on computational semantics of language and addresses various areas in Natural Language Processing and Data Analytics, including in-depth machine reading of text, information extraction, automated text summarisation, question answering, the semi-automated construction of large lexicons and ontologies, and machine translation. 

 Daniel (Dan) Quinn joined the Australian Public Service as a graduate in 2001 in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. He worked there for seven years before working in an industry association for four years as the national lead on agricultural biotechnology. Mr Quinn re-joined the Australian Public Service in 2012 at the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. In 2018, Mr Quinn joined the Resources Division and in 2019 he led a small team that published Australia’s Critical Minerals Strategy 2019, for which they received a Secretary’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Department. In January 2020 he moved to the Resources Strategy Branch and was made the permanent general manager of the branch in September 2020. In January 2023 he became the General Manager of the Enabling Technologies Branch in the Technology and Digital Division. 

Jackson Calvert-Lane, an Engineering Manager at Optimal Reality in Deloitte Australia, hails from Brisbane. He joined Deloitte in 2020 after earning a BSc. in Extended Physics from the University of Queensland.

Jackson’s pioneering work led to the development of ‘AutoEye,’ an AI-integrated CCTV system in partnership with AWS-Panorama and the Department of Transport and Planning. As an Engineering Manager, he now oversees software design, implementation, and client rollout for Optimal Reality’s cutting-edge products, enhancing ground transport solutions.

Benny first joined the Optimal Reality (OR) team during its early stages as an intern at Deloitte in 2019. Optimal Reality is Deloitte’s digital twin capability based on simulation techniques pioneered in Formula One racing. OR helps organizations run millions of permutations on a digital replica of their network to drive optimal decision-making within seconds, eliminating trial and error. Benny was responsible for developing realistic vehicle path generation models for the initial ground transport digital twin the team was working on. After graduating from Swinburne University of Technology with a Bachelor of Information Technology (majoring in Computer Science/Business Technology), he returned to the team as a Graduate in 2021. Since his return, Benny has been a core software engineer of the team, responsible for the API framework central to the Optimal Reality solution. Benny is also a member of the OR Product Team, focused on building the internal SDK used by client delivery teams across Deloitte to accelerate development in OR engagements.