Speakers

As a strong, compassionate, exuberant leader with nearly a decade of experience in creating engaging and dynamic experiences; I will successfully guide individuals and groups towards greater self-awareness, cultural empathy, and ways to lessen overwhelm. I am a passionate facilitator, community developer, and leadership advisor with a wealth of experience in leading sessions that promote self-discovery as a way to uplevel and design your life. I believe in the power of connection and collaboration, and I strive to create spaces where individuals can come together to grow, learn, and get on the path toward their goals.

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Selva has been a Community Lead for 20 years — nurturing, growing, building, positioning, mentoring, managing, and leading engaging communities both offline and online. He does strategy and implementation that are impact driven and contribute to growing communities. He currently helps MYOB to grow and engage its customer community.

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Pritika is a Senior Social Media Professional passionate about connecting and nurturing online communities. With a drive to understand the connection between client and audience, she's constantly looking for new challenges within various ethical industries. She’s currently a Senior Community and Content Manager at Quiip. With a background in game design, Pritika is a passionate supporter of Melbourne's local games scene. She produced multiple grassroots art exhibitions and is a proud advocate for women in games. She was the Social Coordinator for the Freeplay Independent Games Festival, Community Manager for CheckPoint, and is currently a Community Manager for indie game, Moonlight in Garland. In all roles she advocated for healthy workplaces and mental health awareness. In my work, I tend to focus on either arts or advocacy. I'm very passionate about mental health awareness and inclusion and believe everyone has the right to a safe online space."

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Paz is passionate about the power of community. She’s the Co-Founder of The Community Collective a community for community builders in the Australian and New Zealand startup space. She’s managed all different types of communities, from Startup Victoria’s founder community (Australia's largest startup community with over 60,000 people), growing RMIT Activator’s startup community from 500 to 5000+ over 3 years, Happy Spaces in person coworking space community, to supporting migrant women to build their own businesses at not-for-profit SisterWorks. She now lives along the Surf Coast where she runs The Community Collective and composes relaxation music as Paz Sounds (her personal music brand) ✨

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As a commercial lawyer Paul has broad skill set, with specialisation in the areas of technology, media law, marketing, intellectual property and corporate governance. He is one of Australia’s leading experts on social media and privacy law, having been recognised in Doyles Guide for Leading Technology, Media and Telecommunications Lawyers and for Leading Intellectual Property lawyers as well as the preeminent Best Lawyers in Australia listing. Paul’s clients span the start up, tech, digital, FMCG, Not for Profit, Media, Advertising, Health and Government sectors. As a sought after speaker at technology and online law conferences, and a guest presenter on radio programs, Paul is also an author of various publications discussing the intersection of media, technology and the law.  

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Noel is serial entrepreneur with a passion for empowering people like you to reach their maximum life potential. His story starts with his parents who came to Australia in the mid 90’s and shortly after he was born. He grew up Aussie, was immersed in the culture and had a thick Aussie accent, yet had this south Asian façade and felt misplaced. He realised growing up there were many like him and in 2018 to celebrate our unique culture he started the online community Subtle Curry Traits. What started as a joke has now become one of the largest Private Facebook Groups on the planet with 1.1 million members & an Instagram of 100K strong. This opened his eyes to the world of entrepreneurship and he hasn't looked back since! More than owning a media brand, his experience includes starting a Social Media Consultancy helping brands win online, a degree in Actuarial Science with more than 5 years working for one of Australia’s Largest Financial Institutions & exceptional public speaking skills with experience in the Corporate and not-for-profit sectors.

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As part of eSafety’s Industry Engagement and Enablement team, Melyssa Troy works with the technology industry to help change the status quo and make online experiences measurably safer and more inclusive. Her work focuses on researching and highlighting innovative online safety best practices, achieving tangible action around eSafety’s world-leading Safety by Design initiative and enabling industry to meet legislated safety expectations.  

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Margareth is a product community manager who has been building and leading communities for over 2 years. She is known for boosting engagement using community strategy and genuine human connection and has worked with AtYourService and Afropolitan. Margareth is enthusiastic about people management, event management and community operations. In addition to being a community manager, Margareth is also passionate about travelling and discovering new cultures through books, movies, art and music. Margareth finds that learning about the culture from its true source is the best way to fully understand a people. When Margareth is not building communities, she is actively participating in global communities like CMX community and Community Club and is always looking for new opportunities to learn and grow. The world is a global village and it's Margareth's pleasure to help connect people to each other via the community.

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Lisa is passionate about online communities, user generated opportunities and the power of the digital masses. As a seasoned technologist and innovator with more than 20 years in the global digital space, she has seen the wave of how online communities can change corporate practices and even governments, build thriving online livelihoods for themselves, and how as a group, purchasing power can reduce the price of goods. Kinora is a safe online NDIS community marketplace connecting people living with disability with each other and to those who have expertise and services to support them. Kinora's mission is to bring to life the wisdom of connected support networks for better outcomes, increased capacity and empowerment for those who are on the NDIS.

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Jordan is the author of new book 'Disconnect, why we get pushed to extremes online and how to stop it'. He is an Australian digital strategy and policy leader with experience at Silicon Valley striving to create a safer, fairer and more inclusive online experience for all Australians. He has over 15 years' of experience spanning commercial, creative and non-profit industries, always at the forefront of developing digital transformation for the public good.

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Joelle Moukhaiber is a Principal Lawyer at the eSafety Commissioner. She advises on the operation of regulatory schemes outlined in the Online Safety Act 2021 and the eSafety Commissioner’s regulatory powers, including the development and enforcement of industry codes and standards, the Basic Online Safety Expectations and the application of existing laws to new and emerging technology.

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Jess has worked as a community manager for 12+ years with a focus on building brand communities in the tech industry. Her experience is mixed across in-person and virtual community management, and always working to find the sweet spot between community needs and organisational goals. Currently at Asana, she manages the Asana Together Ambassador program for Asana's members across the Asia-Pacific region, hosting events and training programs for Asana's biggest fans - passionate about productivity, efficiency and collaboration. Previously, Jess spent 6 years leading Microsoft Retail's community and philanthropy programs in Australia, established Virgin Australia's social media monitoring program and managed social communities for Microsoft's European HQ.

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Hugh is a long-time community builder, who currently works as Director of Community at Constantia, where he oversees multiple owned communities and builds community strategies for open-source tech organisations. His passions lie in building high-performing teams, creating engagement strategies, and facilitating safe community spaces. When not actively working with communities, his focus is on his faith and my family.

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Francesca Funayama has been a community professional for almost 10 years. She has managed communities within the startup, tech and gaming industries. She is currently the Community Manager for the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) Australia, a not-for-profit that supports cross-industry data and technology solutions to reduce online child sexual exploitation. ICMEC’s Member Portal is a private community for stakeholders within the CSE response ecosystem.

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Chris is an award-winning enterprise community builder, futurist and workplace collaboration expert. For more than 20 years, he has helped organizations leverage the power of community and collaboration to deepen trust, increase loyalty, build better products, drive engagement, save millions in costs and grow top-line revenue. As a speaker, consultant and strategist, he has helped audiences transform disengaged customers into loyal and passionate brand advocates. He has led clients to create a digital workplace that connects and builds strong employee relationships and networks. Today he speaks and leads workshops to empower leaders and community builders to leverage community as a strategic asset in the workplace and a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

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Chinwendu Nwazojie is an accomplished tech community leader who has spearheaded the growth of three vibrant communities. As the Chapter Lead for OSCA Awka, she is deeply committed to advancing the tech ecosystem through community-driven initiatives. With a passion for knowledge sharing, Chinwendu has authored several articles on topics such as automating the onboarding process and collaborated with GitHub Education and Innovation Growth Hub to organize virtual workshops. Her expertise in community development is reflected in her thought-provoking content on the Hashnode platform, where she shares valuable insights on various tech-related subjects.

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Annie is a community engagement all-rounder with contagious energy. Currently the Director of Customer Community for Who Gives A Crap & Good Time. She has over a decade of experience in community ranging from retail, corporate, not for profit, health and wellness and the start-up world.

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