Speakers Bio & Abstract

Biography
Andrew is Director of AURIN (Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network). AURIN is an Australian government funded eResearch Infrastructure providing urban and built environment researchers with fast, single point of access to diverse sources of geo-spatial data and analytical tools. Prior to AURIN Andrew worked for CSIRO, Australia?s national science agency where he held senior executive technology commercialisation and research management positions. Andrew has extensive experience in leading and managing multi-disciplinary project teams across digital productivity, mathematical and aerospace sciences and on projects as diverse as customer experience improvement for government Human Services, aerospace technologies and advanced quantitative risk platforms used across the banking system and global capital markets. Most recently, Andrew was based in Seattle, Washington as Senior Technical Advisor to The Boeing Company. In 2012 Andrew was co-recipient of the CSIRO Medal for Research Achievement for his role in the successful commercialisation and licensing of a new aerospace technology. Prior to joining CSIRO Andrew held Group Executive level roles with a number of Australia?s largest financial institutions, including ANZ Banking Group Limited.Abstract
Spatial Data Infrastructure To Turbo-Charge Evidence Based Decision MakingThe decisions we make today will determine how our cities are perceived in ten, twenty, and a hundred years hence. We can plan our cities better if we can use all of the information that’s available from governments, researchers, businesses and other organisations – information about where people live and work, now and in the future, the transport available, social and cultural patterns and intersections with well-being and prosperity, and how areas of economic activity are changing.

In Australia, there are many who argue that Urban planning practices are moribund with decision making around large scale city and infrastructure projects poorly understood and communicated. How do we improve the evidence base underpinning contemporary urban planning, both in a way that the community understands and with greater accessibility and transparency? Moreover, understanding the ‘city as a system of systems’ the multi-dimensional components of these systems, their intersections, their inter-dependencies, to provide a 'whole-of-system' view for understanding large scale development and investment impacts, while generally elusive, is where AURIN’s data aggregation and integration capabilities is world leading.

AURIN is turbo-charging urban research in Australia by giving researchers and policy analyts fast, reliable access to geo spatial ata from every tier of government and from industry. AURIN's ability to ingest myriad datasets, interrogate, visualise and map these, dramatically improves the analyst's ability to delineate between inextricably linked systems. For example: the line between industry clustering, agglomeration policies, crime and social disadvantage; the linkages between communications, physical infrastructure health and public safety systems.