We have a fantastic lineup of speakers and panelists for the Media140 Sydney Conference. Here are the biographies and pictures of the people you’ll be hearing from. More profiles will be added over the next couple of days.

Mark Scott

Appointed Managing Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for a five year term from 5 July 2006. Mark Scott has presided over a significant transformation of the ABC since his appointment as Managing Director in 2006. The ABC has extended its leadership in News with the launch of ABC News Breakfast and by establishing its Continuous News service. Editorial standards at the ABC are now independently audited to ensure the Corporation continues to set a benchmark for quality in the Australian media. The ABC's international engagement has expanded, through new partnerships with agencies like AusAid in its work on international projects, and by continually increasing audiences for Radio Australia and Australia Network. Mark Scott was named Media Person of the Year in 2008, the year in which the ABC inaugurated Australia's first internet television service, iView, attained its highest audience share on record in Radio and Television, and more than 14 million vodcasts were downloaded. Before coming to the ABC, he spent almost twelve years in a variety of editorial and executive positions with Fairfax Media, including his appointment as Editorial Director of the Fairfax newspaper and magazine division and Editor-in-Chief of Metropolitan, Regional and Community newspapers. Mark Scott holds a Bachelor of Arts, Diploma in Education, and Master of Arts from the University of Sydney and a Masters degree in Public Administration from Harvard University. twitter: @abcmarkscott

Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen teaches journalism at New York, where he has been on the faculty since 1986. From 1999 to 2005 he served as chair of the Department. In 1999 Yale University Press published his book about the civic journalism movement, What Are Journalists For? Rosen is the author of PressThink, a blog about journalism and its ordeals in the age of the Net (http://www.pressthink.org), which he introduced in September 2003. In 2006 he founded New Assignment.Net, his research vehicle for open source journalism projects. In 2007-08 he was co-publisher, with Arianna Huffington, of OffTheBus.Net, an experiment in pro-am election coverage that eventually drew 12,000 participants. On Twitter Rosen coined the term “mindcasting” to mean a style of sharing links and connected thoughts, in contrast with "lifecasting." twitter: @jayrosen_nyu

Valerio Veo

Valerio Veo is the Executive Producer, SBS News & Current Affairs Online and is responsible for World News Australia, Dateline, Insight & Living Black. Starting out as an ABC radio news reporter, Valerio spent time in Kalgoorlie, Bunbury, Perth & Melbourne before joining SBS TV news in 2002 - but it wasn't long before he succumbed to his geeky tendencies first at SBS, then at ninemsn in 2004. There he helped ninemsn news become the biggest news site in the country, before taking on current affairs where he redesigned The Bulletin website and worked on Sunday, 60 Minutes and A Current Affair. He also enjoyed the trip of a lifetime covering The 2006 World Cup in Germany for ninemsn before being lured back to SBS. World News Australia online was relaunched in November 2008 and was a finalist in the AIMIA awards and honoured in the news category of this year's Webby Awards. twitter: @valerioveo

Lawrie Zion Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University

Lawrie Zion co-ordinates Journalism at La Trobe University, where he is also editor-in-chief of upstart. After spending much of the 80s teaching at Monash and writing a PhD about pop music in Australian in the 1960s, he went on to spend much of the next two decades working in the media, including a nine-year stint at ABC radio, where he was based at Triple J, presenting key on- air shifts, and establishing the station’s highly successful Hottest 100 listener poll. He was part of the team that made the ABC music documentary series Long Way to the Top and Love is in the Air. In 2007 he wrote, researched and co-produced the award-winning documentary The Sounds of Aus, which told the story of the Australian accent. His print credits include a decade as a columnist and contributor for an array of publications including The Age and The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone Australia, and HQ, and a two-year stint as film writer with The Australian. twitter: @lzion

Leigh Sales

Leigh Sales is a journalist and author who anchors the acclaimed Lateline program on ABC1. From 2001 to 2005, she was the ABC’s Washington Correspondent and from 2006 to 2007, the network’s National Security Correspondent. She won a Walkley Award in 2005 for her coverage of Guantanamo Bay and was also nominated in 2006 for her on-the-ground reporting of Hurricane Katrina. Leigh’s first book ‘Detainee 002: the Case of David Hicks’ won the George Munster Prize for Independent Journalism and was a finalist in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Her second book ‘On Doubt’ was part of Melbourne University Publishing’s series Little Books on Big Ideas. Leigh writes a fortnightly blog called ‘Well-readhead’ for the ABC and News Limited. Her writing also appears regularly in The Monthly. twitter: @leighsales

Annabel Crabb

Annabel Crabb has just been appointed as the ABC's chief online political writer. Formerly, she was a political columnist and sketchwriter for the Sydney Morning Herald; she joined the federal parliamentary press gallery in 1999 and has covered politics ever since, aside from a three-year break as a correspondent in London for Fairfax's Sunday titles. Annabel's unfortunate tendency to maim and kill laptop computers in bizarre ways (she once baked one in her oven) has not hindered her enthusiasm for Twitter, and she is a regular Tweeter of parliamentary Question Time. Annabel was born and raised in country SA and now lives in Sydney with her partner and toddler daughter; she is expecting another baby in February. She is a regular panellist on ABC TV's Insiders. twitter: @annabelcrabb

Bronwen Clune

Bronwen’s first story as a journalist was covering a meeting on how to attract ladies to the town of Narrogin, WA, to marry the local farmers. She got lots of winks that day and it's been downhill since then. Her next story was covering a sheep auction. She was seconded back to Perth where she worked at The West Australian as a reporter before freelancing and naively embarking on an ambitious effort to save journalism. Yes, she has delusions of grandeur. She has been elected to be on the board for the Foundation for Public Interest Journalism where she hopes to at least make somewhat of a contribution to achieving that goal. She’s enjoying having the time to write again in between running her own company, Norg Media (an experimental citizen journalism site), and speaking on the future of media at various national and international events. When she’s not doing that she’s likely to be dancing like nobody’s watching. She blogs at http://bronwenclune.com twitter: @bronwen

Chris Warren

Christopher Warren is the federal secretary of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance and CEO of the Walkley Foundation for Excellence in Journalism. He was president of the International Federation of Journalists from 1998 to 2007. Chris started in journalism on The Sydney Morning Herald in 1976 and has also worked for the ABC and as a lecturer in journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney. twitter: @mediaalliance

Laurel Papworth

Laurel Papworth has been running online communities and virtual worlds for nearly 20 years. She's been blogging for 5 years, and her blog is one of 4 Australian blogs named by AdAge in the global Power150 Media blogger list. Since 2005, Laurel has taught professional development social media classes at the University of Sydney, and currently consults to Singapore Ministry of Defense as well as Australian/global companies on social media communications. twitter: @silkcharm

Professor Catharine Lumby

Professor Catharine Lumby is the Director of the Journalism and Media Research at the University of NSW. She was formerly Chair of the Media and Communications Department at the University of Sydney. Professor Lumby is the author of seven books and numerous book chapters and journal articles. She has been a news reporter, feature writer and columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Bulletin magazine.

John Kerrison
	John Kerrison's a former network reporter for Nine News & ABC. He's completed his communications Masters and embraced the power of new media. twitter: @jkerrison

Julie Posetti

Julie Posetti is Media 140 Sydney’s Editorial Director. An award winning, internationally published academic and former ABC journalist, she lectures in broadcast journalism at the University of Canberra, blogs at J-scribe (http://www.j-scribe.com), freelances for traditional media, tweets up a storm and recently gave birth to the winsome Amalia Grace. A Walkley finalist in the investigative category and the winner of the Australian Human Rights Award for Radio, at 21 she convinced the ABC to put her in charge of the Illawarra newsroom. After a stint with ABC TV Documentaries, she went to Canberra as a national political correspondent for AM & PM in the mid 90s. In 2003 she began her academic career and won a national Carrick Award for teaching in 2007. She’s attempting to think grand thoughts in pursuit of a PhD but she secretly prefers to tweet them. twitter: @julie_posetti

Riyaad Minty

Riyaad Minty leads the Al Jazeera Network's social media initiatives. As part of the Network's New Media team, he ensures that Al Jazeera has a presence and is part of the conversation across Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. Riyaad was part of the team that produced Al Jazeera English's Emmy nominated coverage of the 2008 US Presidential Election (International Digital Emmy 2009). Most recently his work has focused on the use of citizen media for crisis reporting, with a particular focus on the war on Gaza (2008/9) and the 2009 Iranian election. He has been interviewed by the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, National Public Radio and Al Jazeera English to discuss how the challenges and opportunities new technologies provide in enhancing news coverage. Prior to joining Al Jazeera, Riyaad co-founded Future Technologies which focused on mobile content production, aggregation and distribution. His company brought the award winning cartoon strip, Madam and Eve, to mobile phones across South Africa. twitter: @riy

Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian is an opinionated and irreverent writer, broadcaster and consultant based in Sydney, Australia. An Internet user since the mid-1980s, his professional focus is on how new social networking, communication and collaboration technologies are changing the way we work, play, socialise and organise our societies — especially in politics and the media. Stilgherrian isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. His style is mercurial, quick-wittedly flipping between playful and provocative. He’s sometimes offensive, often insightful, and always entertaining. He’s one of Australia’s most prolific and (according to NEWS.com.au) “interesting” users of the social messaging service Twitter. twitter: @stilgherrian

Mia Freedman
	Mia Freedman is a columnist, author and blogger at mamamia.com.au. She is the chair of the federal government¹s National Body Image Advisory group, having been an industry leader on this issue during her former life as a women¹s magazine editor. Her second book, Mama Mia: A Memoir of Magazines, Motherhood & Meltdowns was published in September. twitter: @miafreedman

Mark Colvin

Mark Colvin is Presenter of the ABC’s long-running national evening radio current affairs program ‘PM’. He has worked as a journalist for 35 years, including 12 years as a foreign correspondent. His work for radio and television news and current affairs, including AM, The World Today, 7.30 report, Lateline and Four Corners, has taken him around Europe, Russia, Africa, the Middle east, the USA and Southeast Asia. He writes a fortnightly web column and twitters. twitter: @colvinius

Chris Uhlmann
		Chris Uhlmann is the ABC’s Political Editor for The 7.30 Report based in Canberra. Chris was appointed the role in August, 2009 after three years of working in the Canberra Press Gallery, as the Political Editor for ABC TV News, and as the ABC News’ Chief Political Correspondent for radio current affairs. Chris quickly distinguished himself as one of the most astute and informed journalists in Canberra and in 2008 won the Walkley for Broadcast Interviewing. Prior to his work in the Press Gallery, Chris was the producer of Melbourne’s ABC Local Radio morning program, a presenter on ABC Local Radio Canberra’s breakfast program, and a reporter and editor in print media. twitter: @CUhlmann

Latika Bourke
		Latika is a Federal Political Reporter with the Fairfax Radio Network which flagship stations include 2UE in Sydney and 3AW in Melbourne. She began her career in Bathurst, her hometown, announcing for the local radio station 2BS. She won two Commercial Radio Awards for her on-air work there, before moving on to the 2UE Newsroom, where she spent 2 and a half years reporting on general news. Late last year she was promoted to the Press Gallery. twitter: @latikambourke

Tony Maniaty
		Tony Maniaty is a Sydney-based journalist, author and academic specialising in globalization and development issues, and conflict reporting. His career highlights include roles as European Correspondent for SBS TV’s Dateline; Executive Producer of ABC TV's The 7.30 Report; and Senior Advisor, Policy and Program Development for ABC News and Current Affairs. He is currently Senior Lecturer in International Journalism at the University of Technology Sydney, and also lectures regularly at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus. Tony has published two novels, The Children Must Dance and Smyrna (shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award), and a memoir of his Brisbane boyhood, All Over the Shop. His latest book is Shooting Balibo (Penguin), his account of reporting the East Timor conflict in 1975 and consulting on the recent Australian feature film, Balibo. twitter: @shootingbalibo

Dave Earley
		Dave got hooked on real-time communication in the 90s, when IRC was cool for people who weren’t. While studying journalism 10 years later he spent three months at a rural newspaper before ingratiating himself in The Courier-Mail’s online newsroom. There he enjoyed working with online journalism toys: audio slideshows, multimedia packages, video editing, even creating Twitter accounts for couriermail.com.au in October 2007 – some of the first Australian mainstream media Twitter accounts. Dave also spent 18 months in the print newsroom as a general news and police rounds reporter. He helped develop the University of Queensland’s first online news production course in July 2007 where, three weeks after graduating, he was tutoring former classmates in website management using original text, video and audio news packages from students. Dave joined Channel 7 Brisbane as Online News Editor in mid-October. twitter: @earleyedition

Renai LeMay
		Renai LeMay has worked as a prolific and award-winning writer for some of Australia's leading technology publications. After a stint as one of The Australian Financial Review's main technology reporters that also saw him contribute heavily to MIS Magazine, he has returned to CBS Interactive to take on the news editor role at ZDNet Australia. twitter: @RenaiLeMay

Bernard Keane
		Bernard Keane studied History at the University of Sydney and in 1993 moved to Canberra to join the Australian Public Service. Since then, he has been a public servant, speechwriter and blogger. In February 2008 he joined Crikey as its Canberra correspondent and works in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. twitter: @bernardkeane

Margaret Simons

Margaret Simons is a freelance journalist, author, and convenor of journalism at Swinburne University of Technology. She is also the Chair of the recently established Foundation for Public Interest Journalism. Simons writes media commentary for crikey.com.au and for her blog The Content Makers. She has written eight books and numerous articles and essays. Her most recent book was The Content Makers: Understanding the Media in Australia (Penguin 2007) which looks at the past, present and future of Australian media. twitter: @Margaretsimons

Caroline Overington
	Caroline Overington in a two-time winner of the Walkley Award for investigative journalism; a winner of the Sir Keith Murdoch prize for journalism; a mother of twins; and author of three books, including 'Kickback' which won the Blake Dawson Prize for Literature, a new novel, 'Ghost Child' (Random House) which explores the mystery and the horror of child murder. twitter: @overingtonc

Claire Wardle
		Dr Claire Wardle is a freelance researcher and trainer, and honorary lecturer at the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural at Cardiff University, where she taught for five years. She has written journal articles and undertaken funded research on a range of journalism and media topics, but most recently led a research team examining the role of UGC across BBC news. As a consequence she has been working with the BBC on improving UGC and social media on Local websites, and is currently working with the BBC College of Journalism, designing and delivering social media training for journalists. twitter: @cward1e

Wolf Cocklin

Wolf joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 2001 as a developer within the Education department. Since then he has worked on a wide variety of projects from educational games for pre-schoolers to some of the early ITV prototypes. Helping to build the first Hypertextualized video within the ABC for the Broadband edition of current affairs program Four Corners. In 2007 Wolf came up with the initial concept for a desktop application to aggregate ABC content – including news headlines, podcasts, vodcasts, audio and video streams, and weather forecast information. This concept was developed and released as ‘ABC Now’ and has since reached over 100,000 downloads. For the last year Wolf has been establishing a framework for the ABC to use and interact with its audience via Twitter. The significance of this service was demonstrated during the Victorian bushfire emergency, when the ABC’s @774Melbourne Twitter account formed an integral part of their emergency broadcast service. twitter: @wolfcat

Dr Jason Wilson
		Jason Wilson is a lecturer in digital communications at the University of Wollongong, and previously he project managed the youdecide2007 citizen journalism project and GetUp!’s Project Democracy e-democracy project. twitter: @jason_a_w

Sherre DeLys
		As founder of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Pool, Sherre DeLys is helping to develop a collaborative space at the intersection of broadcast and participatory media. Pool brings together ABC professionals and audiences in an open-ended process of participation and co-creation. Her own collaborative radio documentaries, radio art and sound sculptures have been commissioned, broadcast and exhibited in many countries and won numerous awards. She’s also created sound design for theatre, performed as a vocalist and hosted conversations for ABC TV as well as teaching and writing on media and audio art. twitter: @delys

Jonathan Green
		Jonathan Green has been a journalist since some time in the mid nineteenth century. This career has included prolonged stints with both News Limited and Fairfax publications in a variety of senior and demeaningly menial roles. At his advanced age, and with his profoundly analogue track record, he is bemused to find himself at the suppurating edge of new media as editor of crikey. He tweets almost as much as @miafreedman. twitter: @greenj

Jude Mathurine
		Jude Mathurine is lecturer and head of Rhodes University's New Media Lab. He is also deputy new media editor of Grocott's Mail in Grahamstown, South Africa. Over the past 14 years, Jude has occupied roles in journalism education and training, media advocacy and media development in South Africa and sub-Sahara Africa. His other interests include curriculum reform for mainstreaming convergence in African JMC-Schools and transformation of the new media space. The New Media Lab has educated a generation of learners with the intellectual and critical competence for the digital transformation of local media environments since 1996. Grocott's Mail, South Africa's oldest independent newspaper is an incubator for a Knight funded projects involving citizen journalism, mobile phones and other digital platforms. Jude blogs at http://nml.ru.ac.za and offers strategic direction to http://www.grocotts.co.za twitter: @newmediajude

Mike van Niekerk
		Mike van Niekerk, Fairfax Digital Editor-in-Chief, has led online editorial development of Fairfax Media’s newspapers since June, 2001, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age in Melbourne, several sports and finance sites and two paperless newspapers, brisbanetimes.com.au and watoday.com.au. In that time the sites have won seven Walkley Awards, Australia’s highest media award, are the most trafficked news sites in Australia and are market leaders for monetising online news and information. Van Niekerk, 54, began his media career on a country newspaper in South Africa before migrating to Australian in 1985.

Barry Saunders
		Barry is a social media producer and editor. He’s worked with Indymedia, Vibewire, Youdecide2007, WWF-Australia and Engagemedia, and has written for New Matilda and ABC Online. He’s also worked as an academic researching new forms of journalism and the development of political discussion online. He moonlights as an e-democracy researcher with the Centre for Policy Development. twitter: @barrysaunders

Andrew Davis

Andrew Davies is a producer with ABC Radio National. He currently co-produces ‘Future Tense’, a program that looks at ‘new technologies, new approaches and new ways of thinking’. In addition to producing Future Tense Andrew also works on Pool, the ABC’s collaborative media site. Prior to that he produced such diverse Radio National programs as the Media Report and the Sports Factor. In 2007 he won the best radio prize at the United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Awards. Andrew is passionate about social media and when he’s not working he seems to spend most of his life online. Luckily for him he gets to call that research! twitter: @awrd

Robyn Willliams
		Science journalist and broadcaster, Robyn Williams, presents ABC Radio National’s Science Show and Ockham’s Razor and, until 2009, In Conversation. Although he graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in England, Robyn admits to spending as much time acting as studying. Early in his career he made guest appearances in The Goodies, Monty Pythonís Flying Circus and Dr Who and stood in for Tom Jones for four months in his TV series. He has conducted countless interviews with scientists on ABC TV on programs such as Quantum and Catalyst, narrated the Nature of Australia series and appeared in World Safari with David Attenborough. Outside the ABC, Robyn has served in various capacities, including President of the Australian Museum Trust, Chairman of the Commission for the Future, and President of the Australian Science Communicators. In 1987, he was proclaimed a National Living Treasure. In 1993, Robyn was the first journalist elected as a Fellow Member of the Australian Academy of Science. He was appointed AM in the 1988 Australian Bicentenary honours list and in the same year received Honorary Doctorates in Science from the University of Sydney and Macquarie and Deakin Universities. The ANU awarded him a Doctorate of Law, and he is a Visiting Professor at the University of NSW and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland. A Reuters Fellowship at Oxford University allowed him time to write his autobiography, And Now for Something Completely Different. He was a Visiting Fellow at Balliol College Oxford in 1995-96.Robyn has written more than 10 books, the latest being a novel, 2007: a true story waiting to happen. twitter: @radionational

Paul Cutler

Paul Cutler, who is Director of News and Current Affairs for SBS Television & Radio in Sydney, has been in journalism almost 40 years and has worked in five continents. Before joining SBS in 2005, Paul was CNN’s Managing Editor in Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong. He had previously worked in CNN’s head office in Atlanta, where he had played a leading role in the coverage of the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the Iraq War in 2003. In Hong Kong he oversaw the coverage of the December 26 Tsunami in Asia. Paul is a New Zealander who spent many years working for Television New Zealand where he was Managing Editor News and Current Affairs for more than five years. Paul started in television with the BBC in London in 1978. He had previously spent four years working for Reuters in Fleet Street as a writer/sub editor. Paul began is career as a print journalist on newspapers in New Zealand and South Africa, where he worked for the Pretoria News, before heading to Europe.

John Bergin
	John Bergin is the Digital Channel Manager at Sky News, where he is responsible for editorial control across www.skynews.com.au and Sky News Active. He studied English and Political Science at the University of New South Wales, and also holds qualifications in advertising and marketing. When he is not working, reading, writing or tweeting, John sleeps. twitter: @theburgerman

Media140 Hosts

Fran Kelly

Fran Kelly is the presenter of ABC Radio National Breakfast, a leading national daily current affairs programme. Before returning to Sydney to present RN Breakfast Fran was the Europe correspondent for the ABC based in London. In that role she covered major stories including the Athens Olympics, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in WW2, and the Hutton Inquiry into the Blair dossier on WMD in IRAQ. Fran also spent a decade in the Federal Press Gallery in Canberra - as Political Editor on ABC-TV 7.30 Report; Political Editor Radio National Breakfast; Political Correspondent ABC Current Affairs Radio - AM, PM and The World Today. Fran was also the lead interviewer and narrator on the ABC TV documentary series The Howard Years and is also a regular guest on political TV programmes including Insiders and Meet The Press. twitter: @RNbreakfast

Julian Morrow

Julian Morrow is a co-founder of The Chaser, a satirical media empire which rivals Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in all fields except power, influence, popularity and profitability. He now works as part of the Chaser creative team and, for his sins, its Managing Director, as well as working independently in the media. After working as an employment and industrial lawyer for several years, Julian sabotaged his legal career by co-founded the allegedly fortnightly, allegedly satirical newspaper The Chaser in 1999. Despite its near total lack of readership, Julian worked on The Chaser newspaper until its final issue in 2005, writing both news satire and the media criticism column MediaCritic. Staying true to the Chaser corporate motto, “Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence”, Julian has worked with the Chaser team on all its media projects, including the internationally popular Olympics parody site silly2000.com, a decade’s worth of Chaser Annuals, a number of Chaser radio shows on MMM, 2UE and the ABC and the stage shows Cirque du Chaser and The Chaser’s Age of Terror Variety Hour. Julian has been a writer/performer on all of The Chaser’s ABC TV programs, The Election Chaser (2001), CNNNN (2002, 2003), The Chaser Decides (2004) and The Chaser’s War on Everything (2006, 2007 and 2009) which together have lost a host of Australian and international TV comedy awards. In this context he has earned one criminal conviction and several near-misses, including most notably the Chaser’s APEC motorcade stunt in 2007.