IoT Alliance Australia
Long-time IT industry executive David Spence has been appointed chairman of the IoT Alliance Australia (IoTAA) replacing Gavin Smith, president at Bosch Australia and New Zealand, who has served as founding chairman since 2016.
South Africa born Spence has been involved in over 25 internet and telecommunication businesses since joining Consolidated Press on his arrival in Australia in 1989. He joined OzEmail as COO in 1994 and was CEO of Unwired, a pioneer of wireless broadband and was chairman of Vocus. Today he chairs PayPal Australia, NNNCo, DiscoveryAG, GoannaAg and Canopus Networks. He recently co-founded a new business AllThingsEncrypted, a company developing new ways of encrypting IoT networks.
Spence said Covid-19 had highlighted the opportunity presented by IoT to connect the physical and digital world and the time was ripe for industry, government, citizens and academia to seize the opportunities for economic growth and social benefit afforded by IoT.
“We have an opportunity with the IoTAA to strongly engage with industry, improve cyber security across digital infrastructure, and work with the Government to enhance productivity across Australia using IoT,” he said.
IoTAA has also appointed two new directors: Judy Anderson, government relations and advocacy lead at AustCyber, the Australian Cyber Security Growth Network, and Matt Codrington, managing director of Lenovo (Australia and New Zealand).
The IoT board now comprises these appointees and Mike Briers, CEO Food Agility CRC, Catherine Caruana-McManus, director strategy and sales at Meshed, and professor Michael Blumenstein, associate dean (research strategy and management) in the Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney.
