Professor Svetha Venkatesh Awarded the 2024 Pearcey Medal

The Pearcey Foundation announced the recipients of its prestigious 2024 National Awards at a gala dinner held in Brisbane last night. The Pearcey Medal is an individual award that recognises a distinguished lifetime of achievement and contribution to the development and growth of the Australian ICT industry and has been awarded annually by the Pearcey Foundation since 1998. All previous 27 Pearcey Medallists can be found at https://www.pearcey.org.au/awards/national/pearcey-medal.

The 2024 Pearcey Medal was awarded to Professor Svetha Venkatesh, distinguished professor and co-director at the Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute, Deakin University. Professor Svetha Venkatesh was also inducted into the Pearcey Hall of Fame, and has been joined this year by Professor Andrew Dzurak and Jan Kornweibel.

Pearcey Hall of Fame 2017 inductee, the Honourable Kate Lundy presented the Hall of Fame awards, and 2023 Pearcey Medallist David Tudehope presented the 2024 Pearcey Medal.

"Professor Svetha Venkatesh isn't just one of the world's leading artificial intelligence experts; her lifetime of work in AI has had a profound impact in multiple fields, including public safety and security, mental health, autism and healthcare. In addition, her role as an educator and mentor has contributed towards generational talent and innovation in AI here in Australia and internationally," said Pearcey Foundation chair, Wayne Fitzsimmons OAM.

"The Pearcey Medal and Pearcey Hall of Fame are the pinnacle of recognition in Australia's ICT industry, with our medallists and inductees chosen each year by their peers in a nationwide vote. Each of this year's recipients have been both pioneers and leaders in their fields, and it's particularly special this year that we are recognising the incredible achievements of both Svetha and Jan in the work they have done to improve the lives and opportunities for people with disabilities. It's an honour to elevate Svetha, Jan and Andrew to a permanent place in our Hall of Fame," said Mr Fitzsimmons.

The event also celebrated the 75th anniversary of the execution of the first digital computer program in Australia on 14 November 1949. It ran on CSIR Mk1 (later renamed CSIRAC), which was designed and built by Trevor Pearcey with assistance from Maston Beard and Geoff Hill. The milestone was marked with a keynote by Emeritus Professor Roy Green AM, a CSIRO board member whose father was one of the first users of CSIRAC.

"CSIRAC was the quantum computer investment of its day. Australia is not new to taking strategic bets. Not all of them come off - but CSIRAC did. It always takes time to know the outcome of the investments we make in technology and innovation, but the point is that we can't sit on our hands and wait for things to happen," said Mr Fitzsimmons.

The 2024 Pearcey Medallist: Professor Svetha Venkatesh

Professor Svetha Venkatesh is a leading Australian computer scientist and entrepreneur who has made fundamental and influential contributions to the field of pattern recognition in multimedia data. She pioneered many theoretical and algorithmic foundations for detecting normal and anomalous activities and deriving meaning from digital video.

Originally from India and completing undergraduate studies there, Svetha moved to Australia to undertake her PhD in Computer Science and work at the University of Western Australia. She is currently a distinguished professor and co-director of the Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute at Deakin University.

Svetha and her Deakin team have tackled a wide range of problems of social significance including the critical areas of autism, mental health, security, and aged care. The outcomes of these efforts have impacted our community directly, as well as through publications, patents, tools and spin-off companies.

Recognising the delays in accessing assistance for the treatment of autism, Svetha has used machine learning to create TOBY (Therapy Outcomes By You): software that provides a framework for helping children work on language, social communication, and other skills.

Her work in the mental health area includes the development of a health analytics tool which enables professional mental health professionals to predict suicide risk, and Svetha's team is currently working with the Black Dog Institute, using AI to accelerate trials aimed at improving the effectiveness of mental health treatments.

As a founder of icetana AI, Svetha has demonstrated her entrepreneurial skills with this ASX-listed software company that provides video analytics solutions.

In 2017, she was appointed an Australian Laureate Fellow, the highest individual award the Australian Research Council can bestow. During her career, Svetha has been appointed a Fellow of several distinguished academies and associations:

• 2004 - The International Association of Pattern Recognition
• 2006 - The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
• 2021 - The Australian Academy of Science

Pearcey Hall of Fame Inductees - Professor Andrew Dzurak and Jan Kornweibel
Professor Andrew Dzurak is a recognised global leader in the field of quantum computing and, along with his fellow UNSW academic, Professor Michelle Simmons AO (the 2023 Pearcey Orator), he has been at the forefront of establishing Australia as a world leader in quantum computing. He is CEO and founder of Diraq, a full-stack quantum computing company using silicon 'quantum dot' technology developed by his team at UNSW over the past two decades. Prior to launching Diraq, Andrew was the foundational director (2007-2022) of ANFF-NSW, the NSW node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility where he spoke on quantum computing at the Pearcey Centenary Celebration at University of Sydney in March 2019. Andrew was also a key participant over 20 years ago in the establishment of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre for Quantum Computer Technology Quantum Computer Technology.

Andrew, with colleague Andrea Morello, demonstrated the world's first silicon quantum bits (qubits) in 2012, and over the past decade has developed a naturally scalable qubit technology by reconfiguring the ubiquitous CMOS transistors that make up all of today's silicon processor chips. Diraq's goal is to revolutionise quantum computing by driving qubit numbers on a single chip to the many millions, and ultimately billions needed for useful commercial applications.

Andrew holds more than 30 patents and has published over 200 research papers, including six seminal papers in Nature that include the world's first demonstrations of one-and two-qubit quantum logic calculations in silicon chip devices. Andrew holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK) and a BSc (Hons) from the University of Sydney. Notably, Andrew received the 2011 Eureka Prize for Scientific Research, and his demonstration of a CMOS-based quantum logic was selected by Physics World, UK as one of the world's Top Ten Scientific Breakthroughs for 2015. He is also concurrently a Scientia Professor in Quantum Engineering at UNSW Sydney, an ARC Laureate Fellow and a member of the executive board of the Sydney Quantum Academy.

Jan Kornweibel started working with computers in London in 1965 before landing an IBM programming position at TAB in Perth. While at TAB, she joined the West Australian Computer Society and was an inaugural member of the Australian Computer Society when the two organisations merged in 1967. Jan gave 16 years of service to the WA Branch Executive Committee, was instrumental in coordinating the first ACS National conference in Western Australia in 1989, and has continued to mentor women in ICT throughout more than 50 years of membership of the ACS.

From the mid-1970s Jan laid the foundations for establishing recognition for computing with disability, a field in which she continues to actively contribute to and support today. Jan started the first Special Interest Group for Computing assisting disabled people at the ACS, and she was at the forefront of instituting the early recognition and awareness of a range of accessibility issues in WA. In 1981 she was awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellows Association scholarship which enabled her to undertake research work in Europe in the emerging area of using ICT to assist disabled people. 

In her most recent role, Jan worked for several years in the Curtin University-based Autism Academy for Software Quality Assurance (AASQA) where she has single-handedly pioneered students on the autism spectrum to sit the ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) certification examination, which a number have passed with quite outstanding results. Jan is a true role model for young ICT professionals, an advocate and worker for disabled people and an inspiration to women in ICT. She is both a Fellow and an Honorary Life Member of the ACS.

The Pearcey Hall of Fame was established in 2004 and details of its 67 inductees are available at https://www.pearcey.org.au/awards/national/pearcey-hall-of-fame.

The Pearcey Foundation would like to acknowledge the support and sponsorship of Flight One, Soda, Data#3 and TechnologyOne, without whom the gala event would not have been able to take place.

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About the Pearcey Foundation

The Pearcey Foundation Inc. is a non-profit organisation established in 1998 to raise the profile of the Australian Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry and profession. It was created in the memory of one of the greatest pioneers of the Australian ICT industry, Dr Trevor Pearcey. By celebrating the heroes in our industry, past, present and future, the Foundation is looking to attract and encourage young Australians into this most exciting of global, high technology sectors of our nation.

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