SXSW Sydney

Friday 18th October

I was offered a free pass to SXSW Sydney this week as part of UTS’ tech and innovation scheme. Here are some of the talks I really enjoyed.

Restoring Traditional Country with AI Tech and Aerial Data

This talk with Nari Nari Tribal Council Delegate, Jamie Woods, conservation programme manager, Mike Roache, Senior Director of Nearmap ANZ, M’shenda Turner, and spatial ecologist, Vera Rullens, focused on how utilising mapping data can help to document and further progress the work of the Nari Nari council with the restoring of “near natural state” to the NSW Murray-Darling Basin – a council-owned 87,816 hectare property. Using Nearmap’s mapping techniques combined with AI assisted ecological mapping, the team have not only been able to document the councils progress with restoring this vast landscape, but have also been able to use it as a tool to pinpoint areas for conservation. 

Conserving Whats in a Changing World: Indigenous Knowledge, Tech, Innovation, Climate and Collaboration

This talk was hosted by wildlife scientist and science communicator, Dr. Vanessa Pirotta, a passionate and engaging professional at the fore of whale research here in Sydney. She came up with ‘Humpback Highway’. Her talk reflected not only on how amazing our “green backyard” is here, but also on how tech innovation can help to protect and learn more about our wildlife; most notably, using drone to collect “whale snot” in a form of PCR testing. 

Science is Better than Science Fiction

This talk, with astrophysicists Dr. Matt Agnew, Dr. Sara Webb, and Dr. Kirsten Banks, reflected on how sci-fi is often less interesting and impressive than the reality of science. After my recent IFLA! Sci-fi Reading List, it was great to be in a room with a bunk of nerds laughing about very nerdy things.