ZDNet Australia & CeBIT 2009 Emerging Technology Innovation Award

Ross Dawson

Futurist

Ross Dawson is globally recognised as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, business strategist, keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies: international consulting firm Advanced Human Technologies, futures think tank Future Exploration Network, events firm The Insight Exchange, and online start-up Repyoot. He is the author of three books including the acclaimed Living Networks, and Trends in the Living Networks, which is ranked as one of the top business blogs in the world. Strong global demand has seen Dawson give keynotes on six continents, while frequent media appearances include CNN, Bloomberg TV, SkyNews, ABC TV, Today and Sunrise shows, New York Times, Washington Post and many others.

Brian Haverty

Editorial Director, CBS Interactive

Brian Haverty is Editorial Director for CBS Interactive in Australia and is responsible for CNET Australia, BNET Australia, GameSpot AU, TV.com and ZDNet Australia.

Brian has been editing and writing on an extensive range of technology subjects for 10 years in Australia, but the areas he specialises in are digital publishing and production systems. He has launched a number of print publications in Australia, including Technology & Business and C|Level, and has served as Editor-in-Chief for the Australian editions of PC Magazine and Windows Sources.

Prior to working with CBS Interactive Australia, Brian was Editor of a number of magazines in Japan including Winds (the in-flight magazine for Japan Airlines) and Tokyo Journal, the English language city guide to Tokyo.

Brad Howarth

Journalist & Author

Brad Howarth is a journalist and author who has contributed to many leading magazines, newspapers and websites in Australia over the past 15 years. Brad is formerly a senior writer with the business magazine Business Review Weekly, where he held the positions of both Information Technology Editor and Marketing Editor.

Brad became a freelance writer in 2004 and has since covered a wide range of topics, including technology, marketing, entrepreneurship, entertainment, and foreign affairs. Amongst the various publications he has contributed are The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, SmartCompany and Australian Anthill. He has also been a contributor to the US-based publications BusinessWeek and Red Herring and the UK newspaper The Guardian. Brad has interviewed many of the world's leading thinkers in marketing, technology and entrepreneurship.

Brad is the author of the book Innovation and Emerging Markets - Where the Next Bulls Will Run, which is a study on the issues confronting emerging Australian technology companies as they strive to commercialise their innovations.

Mick Liubinskas

Co-founder, Pollenizer

Mick co-founded Pollenizer with Phil and heads up the strategy/marketing team. Working as a web strategist, Mick brings together the customers, technology and business model to create a profitable business. Known as 'Mr Focus', he helps companies concentrate their resources on creating exceptional value to a small segment and then exploding growth.

Mick headed up the marketing and business development teams for the enormous and notorious Kazaa file-sharing application. Together, Mick and Phil helped take Kazza to four million downloads a week, 300 million total downloads and 5 million people online. Mick has also raised investment and ran his own start-up and worked in Europe, North America and Asia with Zapr & Tangler as CMO. With Pollenizer, Mick has worked with a number of outstanding management teams from around the globe including 3eep, Lingopal, GetPrice, Xumii, Photo Art and helped start MoGeneration.

Iggy Pintado

Speaker and Author

Iggy Pintado is an accomplished and experienced business leader, executive, coach, speaker and author. He is an internationally recognised connection technology guru and a dedicated observer of societal and business models and patterns.

Over the last 22 years, he has held professional, management and executive positions in marketing, sales, channels, operations and online management at both technology giant IBM (1986-2006) and until recently, at telecommunications specialists, Telstra. In 2008, he co-founded a business networking consulting, marketing, coaching and mentoring business based in Sydney, Australia called ConnectGen, where he is CEO and CNO (Chief Networking Officer). As a "super-connected" networker on LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook and Twitter, he has earned his place in the Top 25 list of the most connected business networkers in Australia.

Iggy has written his first book, Connection Generation, a fascinating study of how connectedness affects our place in society and business, and the challenges and opportunities this compelling development presents.

He is passionate about passing on his knowledge, findings and insights to large and small organisations alike. He is regularly invited to speak at business conferences, tertiary institutions and leadership seminars and is a highly regarded and sought after mentor. His insights into business management and marketing has led to his engagement in external consulting and committee work with the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) Advisory Council, the Blue Chips Marketing Council, and IBM's Small Medium Enterprise committee.