The proponents

The Association has been formed by academics from various universities and practitioners with wide industrial and community experience who have worked together in various combinations over several years.

The office bearers and committee were elected by and from the then members at the meeting which authorised incorporation of the Association. It is intended that colleagues who have been working with us though an extended informal lead up process will soon be added to the founding membership.

Application for Membership

President: William Hall

Evolutionary biologist who, after retirement from his academic career, was involved in knowledge management roles, including desktop publishing, computer literacy education, publishing and documentation management. From 1990 until 2007 Hall filled documentation, content, and knowledge management roles for Australia’s then largest defence contractor, related to the $7 billion ANZAC Ship project to build ten frigates for the Australian and New Zealand navies. Thanks in part to implementation of state of the art content and knowledge management systems, this stringently fixed-price defence project, negotiated in 1989, finished in 2007 with a profit for the company, and with every ship delivered to a satisfied client on time and on budget. From 2002 to 2005 Hall was an honorary fellow in the Knowledge Management Lab in the Faculty of Information Systems at Monash University, and since late 2005 Bill has been a National Fellow in the Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society, and currently a Senior Fellow in the Engineering Learning Unit both at The University of Melbourne. Adding to his early work as a biologist in evolution, genetics, systematics and speciation, while a Fellow, Bill has published a number of practical papers on knowledge management in defence engineering and landcare community knowledge management, as well as papers on the theories of the origin and evolution of knowledge and organization.

Vice-President: Susu Nousala

Honorary Research Fellow at the Australasian Centre for the Governance and Management of Urban Transport (GAMUT) Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne. Until June she was a Research Fellow at Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL), RMIT Design and Social Context, School of Architecture and Design. Previously she was the Victorian Project Manager for the Australian activities of the Cost-Worth project. Her areas of research interest include knowledge networks as complex adaptive systems, understanding the value and transference of tacit knowledge in socio-technical networks and complex systems. She is also involved in the development and coordination of a research group focusing on the theory, ontology and management of organizational knowledge. To date she is the author and co-author of over 30 refereed journal and conference papers, as well as 3 book chapters. She has been successful in managing and securing funding for several National and International grants and projects.

Secretary: Tony Smith

Career systems analyst and software developer with a long history of voluntary leadership of community organisations. He has been independently researching emergence in complex systems, particularly cellular automata, since 1983. He has written and presented extensively on ICT trends and policy and on his research, and has organised professional events. He played pioneering roles in online information systems and desktop publishing. He has an MSc from The University of Melbourne in Science-Technology-Society. He is currently president of the Moonee Ponds Creek Co-ordination Committee, organiser of Melbourne Emergence Meetup Group, a member of Brimbank Council’s advisory committee on Economic Development and Transport and on the committee of Open Source Developers’ Club.

Treasurer: Amir Morris

Background in academic study and research as well as significant real world experience at all levels, both in Australia and Internationally, combining medical disciplines and especially occupational preventive medicine, together with Ergonomics and Human Factors focusing on the mix of cognition and physical issues. He has spent significant time as a university ergonomist and lecturer, covering the areas of Human Factors and Ergonomics, Occupational Health and Safety, Risk Management, and System Safety/Science. In recent years his focus has evolved into complexity and cognition especially. From 2002 through 2008 he was employed in the aerospace industry as the Principal of an internal human factors and system safety engineering group within two major aerospace companies. Since 2008 he has focused on analysis and future growth for complex thinking especially within transport and sustainable growth.

Committee

Roger Hadgraft, Bill Kilpatrick, James Newton-Thomas, Russell Thompson.