Matt Lee
VP of Alibaba investment arm Youku Global Media Fund, Beijing

Matt Lee is VP of investments at Youku Global Media Fund, a joint venture between Youku Tudou, an Alibaba investment company – the world’s largest e-commerce market place, and Silicon Valley fund CRCM Venture Capital.

Matt leads the investment team focused on virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence, and led investments in Humense (volumetric capture), VREAL (VR game streaming) and UploadVR (VR news). Other significant VR/AR investments include Bitmovin, Spaces, Limitless, Tactical Haptics, Midas Touch, Reload Studios, Baobab Studios and Musical.ly.

Prior to CRCM, Matt was an investor at Pereg Ventures, an early stage VC focused on media and marketing technologies in USA and Israel. Matt started his career as a systems engineer at Macquarie Group, and worked on enterprise software and hardware projects in Australia, Canada and USA.

He is an angel investor and adviser to tech startups such as Roam.co (co-living) and Designfeed.io (marketing AI tech). He also was an advisor to companies at Microsoft Ventures in London, Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator and NYU Incubator in New York. Matt holds an MBA from London Business School and a Bachelors in Engineering from University of New South Wales.

Toby Zhang
Co-Founder of Alibaba investment arm Youku Global Media Fund, Beijing

Toby Zhang is a partner at CRCM Venture Capital, and leads the firms investments in consumer tech and emerging tech. At CRCM, Toby co-founded Youku Global Media Fund, a joint early stage venture fund between CRCM and Youku focused on media, AR/VR, and A.I. Prior to CRCM, Toby was an venture investor at Edison Partners, a growth-stage VC focusing on interactive marketing, e-commerce, and financial technologies. Toby previously worked as a technical program manager in the Windows Division at Microsoft building Windows 8 and 8.1. He has also spent a number of years building and advising tech startups. He co-founded Tradeversity, an online textbook market platform backed by RPM Ventures. He also served as a consultant at the Wharton Small Business Development Center. Toby holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Engineering from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Duncan Ransom
Academy Award winner and CEO, The Endless Collective, New York

Duncan Ransom is the Founder and CEO of The Endless Collective, a full-service production studio specialising in virtual/augmented reality applications, photo-real digital sculpting and high-end 3D pre-visualisation. Before establishing The Endless Collective, Duncan served as a computer-generated story artist and animator with legendary animation studio, Framestore CFC, where he and his team won the VFX category Academy Award for their work on Gravity. His animation work has also been seen in other visually stunning films including Edge of Tomorrow, 47 Ronin and Clash of the Titans. Duncan is currently focused on using immersive technology tools to help improve and redefine aid in the healthcare, environmental, medical and recreational therapy industries.

Mark Pesce
Co-Creator of VRML, Sydney

Mark Pesce is one of the world’s foremost VR pioneers. He’s also an author, broadcaster and engineer. In 1991 he founded the first consumer virtual reality startup, inventing an orientation sensor for low-cost applications adopted by Sega for its Virtua VR head-mounted display. Three years later he co-invented the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), which became the first standard for interactive 3D graphics on the World Wide Web. While running the VRML Architecture Group, Mark founded the first startup to use VRML to deliver streaming entertainment. In 1998, he was invited to found the Graduate Program in Interactive Media at USC’s world-famous School of Cinema-Television, teaching the next generation of creative professionals how to master new storytelling technologies. Mark was invited to Sydney in 2003 to establish an Emerging Media program at AFTRS. He has an Honorary Appointment in the Digital Cultures Program at the University of Sydney. Mark writes for internationally respected tech publication, The Register, and was a panelist on the ABC’s hit series The New Inventors for seven years. He currently hosts This Week in Startups Australia, the nation’s leading tech podcast.

Hilda Clune
Chief Information Officer at PwC, Australia

A senior business leader with strong transformational, technology and digital experience, Hilda has been engaged in a range of sectors for the last three decades. With core knowledge and experience primarily in the professional services sector, Hilda has focused on business transformation enabled by digital and technology. With a broad background that spans the telecommunications, investment management, property, retail and fashion industries, Hilda has undertaken a number of senior leadership positions at AAPT, Deloitte Australia and SingTel Optus. A Member of PwC's Global Technology Strategy Council – a body responsible for directing a 158-country global technology transformation program across PwC’s international network – Hilda is also Vice-Chair of the Australian Maronite Professionals Council and a Director of PwC Services Pty Ltd.

Scott O'Brien
Co-Founder Humense and AR/VR Innovator/Pioneer, Sydney

Scott O’Brien is the co-founder of a world leading Virtual (VR), Mixed (MR) and Augmented Reality (AR) company, Humense. Humense based in Sydney, provides the world with immensely human experiences via a platform and toolset that facilitates and simulates human performance, communication in a range of realities and environments. Since 2009 Scott has led the world in AR and VR commercialization efforts, working on multi-million dollar entertainment and industrial projects with various global leading brands and producers. Completing the conception and delivery of over 100 AR and VR apps and dozens of significant world firsts, Scott is now focused on human to human communication as a breakthrough to mainstream for various “reality” mediums. Beyond text, image and video, comes volumetric videos where you can either walk around inside the video scene via VR, or invite a true to form, 3D volume or holographic video of a person/object into your personal space and time delivered in augmented or mixed reality (eyewear or mobile). Due to the pursuit of the above, Scott is regularly sought as a speaker across a range of industries and education institutions. Most notably he was chosen to speak alongside Peter Costello at the annual Australian Superannuation industry event in 2014 discussing the future of holographic telepresence, workplace collaboration and training. Scott and his colleagues at Humense help communicate how volumetric video and holographic telepresence will affect major infrastructure investments, environment and society in the billions of dollars and billions of people over the coming few years from today. Are you and your colleagues aware, skilled, equipped and ready to adapt?

Joseph Narai
Founder of Transmedia Group, Australia's leading Virtual Reality company, Sydney

Joseph Narai is a technology innovator with over 25 years of research and development experience, having created many world first and award winning products across a wide variety of industries. In that time, Joseph founded several technology based businesses and has held the positions of managing director, chief technology officer, technical director and research and development engineer. The combination of his talent for real-time system design and development, a passion for intuitive and ergonomic user experiences and the drive to be the first and best in everything he does, means that Joseph is in his element when he’s assembling and leading a talented multi-disciplinary team. Transmedia.Group is Australia's leading Virtual Reality development company, the perfect storm of Storytelling, Technology and Design. With its Retail, Property and Entertainment divisions all being powered by their revolutionary Drop In VR platform, the company delivers breakthrough interactive VR experiences which transform the way retail, property and entertainment are produced, communicated and consumed. Transmedia.Group most recently attended the VRLA Summer Expo where they showcased their Drop In VR platform, and In-Store Asia in India where they debuted their virtual reality retail platform, Verity.

Martin Tomitsch
Head of Design & Chair of the Design Lab, University of Sydney

Martin Tomitsch is Associate Professor in Design at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, Head of the Design Discipline, and Research Chair of the Design Lab – an interdisciplinary research group that investigates the role of design across a range of domains and contexts. Martin is also Director of the Design Computing Bachelor program and teaches interaction design in the Bachelor program as well as the Master of Interaction Design and Electronic Arts program. Martin is also an active member of the interaction design research community, and has participated in workshops, conferences, and journal committees. Published over 70 articles, co-authored three books, and regularly present his research at academic and industry conferences. In Martin’s research, he draws on the fields of human–computer interaction, urban interaction design, and media architecture to define new forms interfaces between the user and the physical environment. Research projects include a range from media facade installations and large-scale urban screens to mobile interfaces and projection-based augmented reality.

Mark Edwards
CSO Transmedia Group, visionary & pioneer in retail 3D virtual reality design, Sydney

Mark Edwards hold a patent for a virtual reality system, including smart objects. Embodiments of the invention include a virtual reality system that includes an instrumented device used to present a virtual shopping environment to a simulation participant. The participant's interactions with the virtual shopping environment may be used to conduct market research into the consumer decision making process. The virtual shopping environment may include one or more smart objects configured to be responsive to participant interaction. The virtual shopping environment may recreate a real-world shopping environment. Mark has expansive global experience at C-Level positions across both the retail and technology sectors, with a proven ability to grow businesses from the ground up, combining entrepreneurial inspiration, drive and determination with market demand and desire. Ability to marry entrepreneurial flair with process and methodology to achieve innovative business scenarios. An energetic and enthusiastic leader of people, utilising proven leadership processes and personal qualities – motivator and mentor; who always has the time to develop and invest in those around him.

Jeremy Harkins
Director and co-founder of ineni Realtime, focused on the development of the real-time visualisation industry, Sydney

Jeremy Harkins is the Director and co-founder of “ineni Realtime”, an innovative technology company focused on the development of the Realtime Visualisation Industry. Jeremy is at the leading edge of real-time virtual technologies and has spoken internationally about 3D immersive environments, VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) for architecture, infrastructure and smart cities. Working with Property Groups, Building Controls Specialists and Developers, Jeremy is aimed at commercialising and integrating new technologies into the Architecture, Planning, infrastructure and Construction industries. His company has partnered with world leaders in building automation, integrated systems and business process management and is providing cutting edge visual solutions for some of the largest and most complex developments in the world. With over 15 years of experience in Architectural Technologies including professional work, consultancy and Full-Time Academia, Jeremy has been a lecturer at an international university (UNSW) helping to educate industry in what can be possible, and is currently focussed on the rapidgrowth and positioning of “ineni Realtime” as market leaders. Ineni Realtime is a market leader in the development of realtime rendering visualisations and virtual reality applications for the built environment and related industries. Helping to simplify the communication of engineering or architectural complexities, the innovative 3D content engages stakeholders whilst drastically saving time and money throughout the building lifecycle.

*Sunny Dhillon unfortunately can no longer attend the event due to commitments overseas.

X Media Lab

X Media Lab (XML) is helping to change the world by teaching the core advanced skill sets of the new innovation industries - data-driven storytelling using visualisation tools and Artificial Intelligence software. It is one of the world’s most prestigious digital media events. Over the past 13 years, XML has run major international conferences and workshops in 22 global cities including Sydney, London, Los Angeles, Beijing, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Singapore.