Schedule

Ms Ingrid Leonard is Assistant Secretary of the Choice and Transparency Branch in the Australian Government, which is responsible for a number of Australia’s Aged Care quality reforms, including Star Ratings, the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program, and the Aged Care Quality Standards. 

She has over 25 years of experience in the public sector, including the last seven years at the Department of Health and Aged Care. She has also worked at the Department of Finance and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. 

Ms Ada Cheng is CEO of the Australian Nursing Home Foundation. An experienced social worker with a Master’s in Community Management, she has played a significant role in developing innovative and quality aged care services in Sydney. The Foundation's significant growth over the past two decades can be credited to her vision and innovative mindset, which have led to cutting-edge outcomes for culturally competent aged services in Sydney. She has contributed to the National Ageing and Aged Care Strategy for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds and currently serves on the Board of the Ethnic Communities Council of ​New South Wales. 

Ms Katrina Ong is an experienced registered nurse in the Australian aged care sector, dedicated to supporting providers in transforming consumer care delivery. With hands-on experience, she understands the challenges aged care providers face in a complex, consumer-driven environment. Her expertise lies in helping providers develop and maintain quality management systems aligned with the Aged Care Quality Standards. She holds a Bachelor’s in Nursing, an MBA, and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She also serves as Non-Executive Director for a leading for-profit home care provider in Australia. 

Prof Jeung Jihong has worked for human-computer interaction and digital media design for over 30 years.   

He was Program Director of the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, which is in charge of South Korea’s government culture technology R&D planning, management, and business development. He previously worked as Vice President of Samsung Mobile and managed user experience design for service and wearable devices. He was a visiting professor at Zhongshan University and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.  

With decades of experience managing various businesses, Mr Shane Muller has advised on four prestigious boards globally. His journey began at age 10, developing a payroll programme for a security company. He has since consulted with 300+ clients, responsible for 50 product innovations, and earned multiple awards, including CRN Impact Awards, Consensus MedTech Award and Australian CEO Excellence Award. Using his extensive experience, he now focuses on mentoring and leading new start-up incubators of cutting-edge technology. As Chairman of The Destiny Foundation and Founder of SafeWatch, he is committed to creating a lasting positive impact for future generations. 

Ms Tina Chang studied Psychology at Taiwan University and earned her MS in Counseling in USA. After working for three years as a mental health counsellor in New York, she decided to change her career path and obtained her MBA degree. In 2015, she returned to Taiwan and began her medtech career. Her vision is to empower promising Taiwanese ​medtech startups to thrive on the global stage. 

With her mental health background, she finds personal fulfilment in joining HippoScreen Neurotech Corp to innovate and promote mental health through AI technology. 

Mr Akira Higuchi is Fellow at the Institute of Development, Ageing and Cancer (IDAC) at Tohoku University in Japan and an attorney-at-law (Japanese and English law). He holds an MSc in Law and Finance at the University of Oxford in the UK. He co-founded CogSmart after having worked not only as a lawyer but also as an M&A and finance adviser, a policymaker in the bureaucracy, and an executive member in a health tech company. 

Ms Allison Harrington is Founder of Resparke – a world first SaaS platform providing personalised music and video experiences via wireless headphone technology to deliver therapeutic outcomes for people living with dementia. Resparke  is currently supporting residents in over 280 aged care homes across Australia and New Zealand. 

She has worked in both the technology and not-for-profit sectors, and is committed to re-inventing ageing and utilising technology to create connections, conversations, and joyful moments. 

She holds a LLB, BA, and Graduate Diploma in Social Impact from the University of New South Wales. 

Huali Wang, MD, Professor of Geriatric Psychiatry, chairs the Clinical Research Division at Peking University Institute of Mental Health (The Sixth Hospital). She is the Executive Director of the Dementia Care and Research Center at the hospital. Her research interest focuses on the early diagnosis and intervention, especially non-pharmacological intervention, for emotions and dementia. Prof Wang is also the President of Psychiatry and Mental Wellness in Chinese Society of Geriatric Society. 

Prof Martin Arguin earned his PhD in Psychology from the University of Montreal in Canada in 1990. He then pursued a post-doctoral fellowship in Psycholinguistics at the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University in Canada from 1990 to 1993. Since 1993, he has been Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Montreal and achieved full professorship status since 2004. He serves as Lab Director at the Research Center of the Montreal Geriatrics Institute, and Member of the Interdisciplinary Center on Cognition and Learning at the University of Montreal.  

Ms Pia Nevala Westman is Senior Adviser working in Public Health and Older Adults at the Nordic Welfare Centre in Finland. She coordinates the Nordic Dementia Network and has recently finalised two Nordic projects on Dementia Prevention and Health Promotion, commissioned by The Nordic Council of Ministers´ Sector for Health and Social Affairs. She holds a diploma in Technical Sciences from Sven Eriksson gymnasium in Boras, a bachelor’s degree in Dietetics from the University of Gothenburg, and has studied Health and Lifestyle on master’s level at Halmstad University. Her former working experience includes nearly two decades in life science businesses. 

Mrs Ulrika Granér is a specialist nurse (RN, MSc) in geriatric care and dementia care, and a certified Silvia Nurse. She started 2006 in oncological inpatient care, moving on to community home care and specialised palliative home care. In 2016-2021 she was a dementia care specialist consultant in two Swedish municipalities, educating and supporting staff working in day centres, home care services, and nursing homes. Family support and education, and supporting people living with dementia was also a part of her everyday work. Since 2021, she is a team member of the Stiftelsen Silviahemmet Foundation, working with dementia care education and international relations. 

Mr Michael Tam is Chief Brand Officer at UBTECH who leads the company’s brand management and ecosystem development. Prior to this, he was CEO at Ogilvy Fashion China and President of Ogilvy Redworks (Now Ogilvy Hogarth) China. With nearly 25 years of brand management experience in international 4A agencies, he focuses on achieving brand communication's continued innovation and revolution in the era of high-speed internet development. Under his leadership, UBTECH was listed on Kantar BrandZ™ Most Valuable Chinese Brands for two consecutive years in 2019 and 2020. 

A graduate in the field of communications with a background in design and architecture, Mr John Paulo de Jesus employs a multidisciplined 360-degree approach to business development and marketing. Starting his career post-university at Footlocker to understand how a company entering a fresh market operates, he subsequently joined The Walt Disney Company, stewarding the growth of the Disney franchise, intellectual properties (IP) and Disney+ streaming service in APAC. 

In 2023, he joined Dex-Lab, a Singaporean company pioneering in bespoke robotics and AI solutions, and currently serves as Business Development Manager. He spearheads product management and key partnerships to grow Dex-Lab’s product line and network. 

Ms Chiaki Mori has been Chairperson of the Chinese subsidiary of GROOVE X since its establishment in 2022, and is responsible for the global projects in GROOVE X. 

Prior to joining GROOVE X in 2021, she had worked for Goldman Sachs for seven years including four years of experience in its New York office. 

She earned a Master's degree in Marine Environmental Engineering from the Graduate School of the University of Tokyo, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Environmental Systems from the University of Tokyo. 

Professor Rajiv Khosla is Managing Director of Human Centred Innovations at Pty, Ltd Australia. He has a multidisciplinary background in management, engineering and computer science. 

His work with social robots like MATILDA has been reported in the Australian Federal Parliament as part of aged care and Care economy in Australia. MATILDA has been deployed in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Sweden in aged care, home-based dementia care, and AI-enabled business process automation sectors respectively.​ MATILDA has been part of 10 national and international awards in the aged care, autism, and social enterprise sectors.

Dr. Thompson obtained his Doctorate, Doctor of Medicine, from the University of Western Ontario. He is Fellowship Canadian College Family Practice and Adjunct Faculty Department Family Medicine UWO, involved in Virtual Care research. He is BCMAS (Board Certified Medical Affairs Specialist) and is working Group Lead for both IEEE SA and WONCA e-Health. 

Dr Anna Xygkou is a PhD Researcher in the School of Computing at the University of Kent, UK. Companionship and Social Connectedness through/with Conversational Virtual Humans (CVHs)/chatbots has been her core research interest, especially when those entities can co-exist with any other physical/artificial entities in any type of context and environment. Her current research interests include conversational AI and human-robot interaction for socially deprived/challenged groups. More specifically, her research focuses on people with autism, grievers, and people with dementia, and how conversational AI can address their companionship needs.

Minna-Liisa Luoma, PhD in Psychology (1996), is Associate Professor at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland (2016). She is appointed Chief Specialist on ageing at Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. Her key responsibilities are promotion of and services for the welfare, functional capacity of older people, supervising in ageing policy as well as ageing services and elderly abuse research and disability issues. Her main research focus has been quality of life on among elderly, end of life care, palliative care, functional capacity of older people, age technology, elder abuse, violence against people with disabilities, and elderly and disability services. 

Mr Arthur Shih is CEO of Humanetix, the world’s leading intelligent care delivery platform based out of Australia. Previous to Humanetix, he held executive roles with software and SaaS companies in New York, London, and New Zealand. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School and lives in Melbourne with his wife and two young kids. 

Amaia Calderón-Larrañaga is Associate Professor in Ageing Research (background in pharmacy and public health) with more than ten years of experience in the epidemiological study of multimorbidity, frailty, and healthy ageing. Her group investigates health in older age shifting from the traditional focus on single diseases towards multidimensional and longitudinal health trajectories. She is particularly interested in the physiological and psychosocial determinants of such trajectories, as well as the interaction of these health pathways with the use of medical and social care services. She is Vice-Principal Investigator of the Swedish National study on Ageing and Care.  

Prof Luo Jar-Der is Professor and a doctoral supervisor of Sociology at the School of Social Sciences and the School of Public Policy & Management at Tsinghua University. His academic focus includes social network theory, complex social systems, social computing, social network analysis in big data, and self-organizing process. He has also established community building research centres in rural areas affected by the Wenchuan earthquake, Beijing's Dashilan area, and Chengdu, conducting social experiments on smart primary governance.  

Mr Andreas Richter is Head of Unit for Digital Inclusion at the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority where promotes digital accessibility and usability, conducts studies on accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities in the digital society, finances research and development project for universal design and accessibility in digital products and services. The unit active in the development of European standards on accessibility for digital products and services, as well as organisational process standards for universal design. 

Andreas has a long career in the field of assistive technology, mainly for deaf and hard of hearing persons, and disability policy and inclusion. 

Mr Huang Jian-wei worked at Alibaba Group for 8 years and gained profound experience in project management. He won awards such as Best Mentor Award and Most Innovative Award in Alibaba Group. In April 2015, he founded ScentRealm, which is dedicated to researching and applying digital scent technology and has over multiple invention patents in this field. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' olfactory project team and the World Digital Olfaction Society. 

Before she joined the Arts with the Disabled Association (ADAHK), Professor Lena Lee served in the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts as Head of the Management programme and visiting Professor of the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. She has substantial management experience of theatrical productions, international events and community arts projects. Professor Lee’s community services include: Chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Theatre Technicians & Scenographers, Council Member of the Academy, Founder Chairman of the Boards of both Four Gig Heads and the Theatre Noir Foundation, Advisor to PLK Young Artist in Residence@V54, member of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Consultation Panel, and Board member of HKAAA. She advocated the concept of Arts Accessibility during her tenure as Vice Chairperson of ADAHK (1988-2014). With her extensive experience and expertise in education, arts and culture, Professor Lee joined ADAHK as Arts Specialist since 2016, where she has been dedicated to the design, practice and advocacy of Arts Accessibility.