There's been much talk lately about the so-called Web 3.0 sparking debate as to whether it is indeed the future of digital communications (Facebook's or rather ‘Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg certainly thinks so) or rather an over hyped concept driven by brands struggling to maintain relevance, and indeed revenues amid growing competition (Zuckerberg would of course tell you it’s not.) If we take a wider look at the various technologies analysts tell us define Web 3.0 – or the metaverse - there are actually many that CIOs and other tech leaders should take seriously. The internet of things (and expand ..read more

Organisations in the public and private sectors were faced with a once-in-a-century crisis, with CIOs and their teams thrust into the front line, delivering digital solutions in quick time that undoubtedly saved countless lives, while changing healthcare forever. In this episode we talk to Richard Taggart, executive director digital health and innovation at Sydney Local Health District, one of Australia’s largest public health corridors, and Alan Pritchard Director of EMR and ICT Services, with Victorian public health agency Austin Health. Two genuine warriors of digital health ..read more

It’s that time of year again, with nominations now open for the CIO50 awards both in Australia and in New Zealand. The program is now in its 7th year down under, and has been running for four years across the ditch, creating a proud and growing alumni group underscoring the high calibre of technology leaders operating in this part of the world. In this episode, David Binning speaks with CIO Australia's editor-in-chief, Byron Connolly, and CIO New Zealand's editor, Cathy O'Sullivan, about their respective CIO50 programs for 2022. Who should enter and how, what this year's judges are l ..read more

Earlier this month this was a good deal of excitement – probably mixed with horror for some – following ‘revelations’ in the tech and indeed mainstream press that one of Google’s chat bots had become sentient. The call – or rather we might say alarm – was raised by software engineer, Blake Lemoine who asked a number of questions of the LaMDA chat bot he had been working with, which communicated several eerily-human responses including its desire to be considered a person with feelings and to be formally recognised as an employee at Google.  LaMDA stands for the Language Model for Dialogue ..read more

We’re coming up to almost two years since the first episode of The CIO Show, which was a two part series discussing how Australian organisations were progressing with artificial intelligence. The scorecard was less than glowing, with much lower confidence and greater fear than most other developed economies. Fear arising both from perceptions of AI as something super complex and other worldly, and from the rising chorus of voices concerned that the ‘machines were coming’ and jobs, life as we know it was under threat, all amid a seeming torrent of ethical and legal challenges – real and imagine ..read more

It’s been just over a year since Australian media giant Nine was rocked by a major ransomware attack pushing its head of IT and the company’s first true head of cyber onto a true war-footing. Coming amid a sharp rise in cyber attacks throughout the pandemic, it nevertheless delivered a jolt to many Australians, seeing such an established and recognised brand fall victim to something like this. As we know the attack led to some broadcast and other operations being seriously disrupted, as well as an almost 3 percent dip in the share price as news got to market. For media tech veteran, Damian Cro ..read more

The Digital Transformation Agency, or DTA, was established back in 2016 with an ambitious charter to steer the Australian public service towards being a world leader in the creation and delivery of digital services. Few would argue that it’s fallen well short of that, with a string of high profile projects failing to deliver despite going way, way over budget. The agency has also had a different boss for almost every year of its existence, alarming rates of churn across staff and senior management, and an increasingly secretive and unaccountable culture, as any journalist who’s tried to speak ..read more

As anyone who follows the Australian CIO50 would know, former Revenue NSW CIO Kathleen Mackay topped the list in 2021 largely for her work in applying AI and machine learning to help develop better systems and processes for identifying - and managing - vulnerable people with outstanding fines. Somewhat awkwardly for her, Revenue NSW, and if we’re honest us at CIO Australia as well, the NSW Ombudsman released a report late last year concluding that that machine technologies used by Revenue NSW between 2016 and 2019 (Mackay’s tenure was largely after that period) to garnish monies owed for ..read more

On November 18, the achievements of 50 of Australia’s leading technology and digital executives were celebrated at the Sydney launch of the CIO50 awards program. In this episode of The CIO Show, the last for 2021, CIO Australia’s editor-in-chief, Byron Connolly, speaks to Dr Steve Hodgkinson, CIO at the Victorian Department of Health, who placed number two in the list, and Helen Clifton, chief digital officer, who placed number three this year. A CIO5o stalwart, Steve Hodgkinson has been a champion of agile in the Australian public sector He discusses the way technology has been used to help t ..read more

One of the key CIO trends we’ve seen throughout the pandemic is that tech leaders have now come to be seen as business leaders in ways we’ve not seen before. And as you’ll hear in this episode, to such an extent that it’s likely the role of CIO – including possibly the title itself – will shift even further away from being focussed just on technology, towards being a vastly more integrated role. But what do CIOs need to do – and know –to be become more effective leaders? And what of those CIOs with genuine ambitions to move into CEO roles? Cyber security is a key concern for CIOs and those exe ..read more