Sisonke Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A memoir of Exile and Home (Text, 2018). She is a South African writer, living in Perth, whose work focuses on gender, race, social justice and democracy.

Sisonke has been published in a range of publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Newsweek and Al Jazeera. She has also held fellowships at Yale University, the Aspen Institute, and she was the Ruth First Fellow at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg in 2014.

Sisonke is currently based at the Centre for Stories, where she heads up the Oral Storytelling programme. She has stories with The Moth, and Porchlight, and given a TED talk on Storytelling, which was released in 2017.

Prior to turning her attention to writing and storytelling, Sisonke was the Executive Director of the South Africa operations of the Soros Foundations (known as the Open Society Foundations). In this capacity, Sisonke oversaw a team of one hundred professional staff, working across ten countries and managing four offices with an annual operating budget of $50 million (USD).

Before this Sisonke worked for the United Nations – based first in Pretoria, then managing a global programme in New York, and finally providing technical support on gender issues in the East and Southern Africa regional office of the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Trish Owen is a Lived Experience Advisor/Consultant, with personal lived/living experiences of disadvantage including housing insecurity and mental ill health including alcohol and other drug issues. They have a passion to use these experiences and their intersecting privileges (I am a white, educated, able bodied) to support organisations to form a bridge between people with lived/living experiences and the organisations and community that support them. Having worked in a variety of Lived Experience roles across mental health, alcohol and other drug, homelessness and community housing sectors, Trish aims to bring Lived Experience Expertise to support organisations to realise their goals and objectives. 

Kim Hutchinson (she/her) is a Lived Experience Consultant specialising in inclusion and collaborative engagement. As a proudly neurodivergent Australian woman of colour, Kim draws on her lived experience with disability, neurodivergence, and mental health challenges to advocate for a world where everyone belongs. With over 12 years of experience in stakeholder engagement and policy development aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, she passionately believes that putting people at the heart of policies, programs, and services is the key to meaningful change. Kim is committed to fostering belonging and driving systemic change, one conversation at a time.

Described by The Guardian as ‘the World’s First Minister for the Unborn’ and by The New Statesman as leading a Welsh plot to save the world, between 2016 and 2023 Sophie Howe was the first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, the only role of its kind in the world. She held the Government to account on how their decisions affect future generations, influencing major policy reforms across Wales and has been a significant voice in other countries following suit including the United Nations who passed the world’s first Declaration on Future Generations in Sept 2024.

She now advises other countries and corporates on implementing long term governance, is a Future Governance Adviser at the School of International Futures, a Global Ambassador for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and holds a number of Board and Academic advisory roles on human and planetary wellbeing.

Named as one of the UK’s Top 100 Changemakers and at number 5 in the BBC Women’s Power List, she is not afraid to call out the madness of short term decision making and is known for being a straight talking and inspirational advocate for those yet to be born.

Australian award-winning patented inventor, Stefan Prandl is a thought leader in network cyber security. His previous speaking appearances range from international cyber conferences such as BlackHat Las Vegas to local Perth events like Cyber West and B-sides.

The Founder and current Chief Technology Officer at his network cyber security company, Hyprfire, his discovery of the Power Laws has been the foundation for Hyprfire’s network security solution, Firebug.

With 8 years teaching as a Curtin University Associate lecturer on computer sciences, he has since led workshops and demonstrations on the current state of cyber related topics. An active member of WA based cyber events, his efforts to grow local talent include sponsorship of Student of Cyber and Bsides, locally run events aimed at assisting interested students in the IT space. You can find his published cyber security papers are publicly available, as well as his podcast appearances.