Keynote Speakers

Paul Dziatkowiec
Director for Mediation and Peace Support, Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Paul Dziatkowiec has spent close to a quarter century in international diplomacy and conflict mediation. He was an Australian diplomat for over a decade, with postings in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa - the latter as Deputy and Acting Ambassador to Kenya and other states including Somalia, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda, and deputy Permanent Representative to the UN. He was a Peace Monitor in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea following the civil war, and was awarded an Australian Service medal.

Later Paul moved to a career in mediating conflicts. During a decade at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) in Geneva, he deployed to various conflict zones to create backchannels and lead secret talks with armed protagonists, including in Myanmar, Nigeria, Thailand and Ukraine.

As Director for Mediation and Peace Support at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Paul runs several discreet dialogue processes, including on Eastern Europe/Ukraine, the Caucasus, Middle East, Northeast Asia, and others. He also advises other organisations engaged in peacemaking.

Paul has written on various aspects of peacemaking in Africa, the Middle East, the Arctic, and on US-China relations; and delivered lectures on such topics in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

Toby Walsh
Professor of Artificial Intelligence, UNSW

Toby Walsh is Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales and CSIRO's Data61. He has a B.A. from the University of Cambridge and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree from the University of Edinburgh. He was named by the Australian newspaper as one of the "rock stars" of Australia's digital revolution.

Professor Walsh is a strong advocate for limits to ensure AI is used to improve our lives. He has, for example, been a leading voice in the discussion about killer robots, speaking at the UN, and to heads of state, parliamentary bodies, company boards and many other bodies on this topic.

He has been elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. He is the winner of the prestigious Celestino Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science and was named on the international "Who's Who in AI" list of influencers. His twitter account was voted in the top ten to follow to keep abreast of developments in AI. He has won both the Humboldt Prize and the NSW Premier's Prize for Excellence in Engineering and ICT.

He has given talks at public and trade events like CeBIT, the World Knowledge Forum, TEDx, New Scientist Live and writers festivals in Adelaide, Bendigo, Bhutan, Brisbane, Canberra, Geelong, Jaipur, Margaret River, Melbourne, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Sydney and elsewhere. He appears regularly on TV and radio, has been profiled by the New York Times and has authored four books on AI for a general audience, the most recent ones entitled "Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World" and "Machines Behaving Badly”.

Photo credit: Centre for Ideas, UNSW Sydney

Amanda Tattersall
Associate Professor of Practice, Urban Geography, School of Geoscience University of Sydney

Amanda Tattersall is an Associate Professor of Practice in urban geography, bringing decades of experience in change making and community-led research to the university and to some of the toughest problems we face.

Amanda is the founder of some of Australia’s most interesting social change organisations. She brought Alinsky-style community organising to Australia, founding the Sydney Alliance in 2007 and serving as its Executive Director until 2016. In 2005 she co-founded the digital campaign juggernaut GetUp.org.au. In 2017 Amanda launched the ChangeMakers podcast to share stories about people changing the world.

Her first book Power in Coalition was the first international study of alliance building as a strategy for social change. It was based on her PhD research as well as on her experiences as an organiser in the union movement and other social movements.

At the University of Sydney her research focuses on two interconnected fields - social change strategy and community-led research methods where knowledge is co-created with affected communities.

Amanda lives with bipolar and has drawn from her lived experience to begin to build a community-led research project about the impact that work and school have on mental illness.

*TheMHS Conference 2024 program is subject to change