The AI & Robotics Innovation Expo brings together more than 30 emerging AI and robotics startups, scaleups, and research organisations from across Australia’s innovation ecosystem to showcase the next generation of intelligent technologies.
The Expo offers a unique opportunity to experience breakthrough innovations through live demonstrations, networking opportunities, and conversations with the founders, researchers, investors, and technology leaders shaping the future of AI and robotics.
Hear from innovators and see how AI and robotics are transforming business, industry, and everyday life while building valuable connections across Australia’s vibrant innovation ecosystem. Learn how automated solutions are enhancing the way we live and work, and experience the next generation of AI-powered technologies first-hand.
This event is presented by AIBUILD in partnership with Innovate Connect Alliance, Global Elite School, StarPlan AI, and the AI Development Group.
Founder and CEO of AIBUILD
AIBUILD is an Australian applied AI commercialisation platform and venture builder. Yifei Wang has grown AIBUILD into a multi-million-dollar technology business with a multidisciplinary team of more than 30 professionals and a portfolio of approximately 15 AI and technology ventures. Yifei is also an Industry PhD Supervisor and Sessional Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, connecting academic research with entrepreneurship and real-world technology deployment.
Strategic Adviser, AIBuild
Kathy Coultas brings a deep understanding of how government, industry, startups, and emerging technologies can work together to drive innovation and economic growth. With senior leadership experience across Victorian and Commonwealth governments, Kathy has worked across industry policy, trade and investment, digital innovation, and technology sector development. Kathy currently provides advisory services to organisations including AIBUILD and InnovateConnect Alliance.
Executive Director, Melbourne Connect
Eduard Hovy is a professor at the University of Melbourne’s School of Computing and Information Systems, and a research professor at the Language Technologies Institute in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr Hovy’s research focuses on computational semantics of language and addresses various areas in Natural Language Processing and Data Analytics, including in-depth machine reading of text, information extraction, automated text summarization, question answering, the semi-automated construction of large lexicons and ontologies, and machine translation.
Councillor, the City of Melbourne
Gladys Liu is an accomplished Australian politician and public servant who has dedicated much of her career to advocating for her community with passion and commitment. Gladys made history as the first Chinese-Australian woman to be elected to the Australian House of Representatives and served as the Member of Parliament for Chisholm from 2019 to 2022.
Lead Scientist, Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions, Victoria State Government
Dr Amanda Caples is Victoria's Lead Scientist and a recognised leader in innovation policy and technology commercialisation. She works across government, research and industry to accelerate the adoption of frontier technologies, including AI, quantum and biotechnology, and to build the innovation ecosystems that transform scientific breakthroughs into economic and societal impact.
Shadow Minister for Industry, Manufacturing & Innovation, AI and the Digital Economy, Parliament of Victoria
An ambitious and effective Chief Executive with over 25 years’ leadership experience across the commercial spectrum, from investment banks, manufacturing, to new technology. A business founder and builder in his own right including 3 successful venture capital raises. Creative in vision and detail and process orientated in execution, with significant international business experience across UK, India, South Africa, USA, ME and Australia.
Professor, Engineering Management, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, the University of Melbourne
Professor Lihai Zhang's research focuses on infrastructure protection and management, with particular expertise in reliability-based life-cycle assessment, risk-informed maintenance, and AI-enabled digital twin technologies. His work aims to improve infrastructure safety and resilience, extend service life, reduce life-cycle costs, and support the transition towards Net Zero. He is consistently ranked among the Stanford–Elsevier World’s Top 2% Scientists and is a Fellow and Chartered Professional Engineer of Engineers Australia.
Co-Founder, Managing Director, StrataXcel
Wendy brings years of experience managing strata properties of all sizes across Victoria. She co-founded StrataXcel after identifying a systemic gap in the strata industry – one that consistently pushed costs onto small Owners Corporations and left their owners underserved. To fix it, they partnered with local AI experts, AI Build, to develop StrataXcel's smart platform, cutting admin time and cost while lifting service quality.
Co-Founder/Director of AskRomi
Sicheng (Joe) Zhou is the Co-Founder & Director of AskRomi, an AI company reimagining property management through intelligent workflow automation. With over a decade of experience in business development, real estate and technology commercialisation, he is passionate about transforming real-world operational challenges into practical AI solutions that create measurable value for businesses.
Co-Founder and Director of Roboly Pty Ltd
At Roboly, our vision is simple: to become a pioneer in Australia’s robotics era. We believe the real impact of robotics is not just about the technology itself, but about how robots can be used in the real world to create practical value. Roboly is not a robot sales company. Our core model is robot rental combined with scenario-based deployment and ongoing services.
NVIDIA Business Manager of Multimedia Technology
Carey leads AI sales at Multimedia Technology, NVIDIA’s Enterprise distribution partner for Australia & New Zealand. As part of his role, Carey helps local ecosystem partners bring AI & Robotics technologies to market.
Head of Technology Practice at Method Recruitment
Liam began his career in HR recruitment in Scotland during the global financial crisis. With 15 years in tech recruitment and 13 years in Australia, he has partnered with businesses to build high-performing teams and support key executive hires. As one of Australia’s first dedicated AI recruiters, Liam has built some of the country’s leading AI centre of excellence’s and continue to help shape businesses’ AI strategy through insights and trends.
Associate Director, Data, AI and Delivery at Method Recruitment
With over 9 years specialising in Data & AI recruitment across Australia, Joseph supports organisations in building high-performing data teams that deliver real business impact. Joseph is a trusted advisor to data leaders, offering practical guidance on hiring strategies, market trends and how to position roles in the market to secure the right people.
Founder and CEO, PrimePilot AI
Victor brings more than 20 years of experience across software engineering, technology architecture and digital platforms, including serving as CTO of MyDeal and building enterprise systems for organisations such as Microsoft and IBM. His current work at PrimePilot AI focuses on multi-agent AI systems, orchestration and connecting AI with organisational knowledge, data and business systems to create practical operational capabilities.
Founder and CEO of StarPlan
Dr Daisy Liu is an AI researcher, entrepreneur and community builder based in Melbourne. She is the Founder and CEO of StarPlan AI, an AI-powered talent intelligence and recruitment platform that helps AI startups in Australia and the United States identify and hire high-quality AI talent. She is also the Founder of AI Development Group (AIDG), a growing technology community connecting researchers, founders, engineers and industry leaders.
Senior AI Scientist, NVIDIA AI Technology Centre
Dr Johan Barthélemy is a Senior AI Scientist at the NVIDIA AI Technology Center, where he collaborates with developers and researchers in building the next generation of AI-powered solutions. He previously led the Digital Living Lab, at the University of Wollongong, focusing on the research and development of AI and AIoT solutions for smart cities applications and biodiversity monitoring in extreme environments.
Professor, Human-Computer Interaction, the University of Melbourne
Jenny Waycott is a Professor in Human-Computer Interaction at the School of Computing and Information Systems where she leads the Design for Ageing research theme. Professor Waycott conducts interdisciplinary research that investigates how technologies can be designed and used to support wellbeing, identity, and social connection in later life. She uses qualitative methods to inform inclusive and ethical design, identifying both the potential benefits and harms of using emerging technologies such as social robots in aged care settings.
GTM at Mistral AI
Building and scaling Mistral AI in ANZ. Frontier AI, in your hands — Mistral believes in a future where AI is abundant and accessible, empowering the world to build with, and benefit from, the most significant technology of our time.
Founder & Ecosystem Builder
Amber dropped out of high school at 16, overcame domestic violence and homelessness, and went on to study biomedical science. She scaled her first service-based business to $500K ARR in 1.5 years. Travel overseas gave her a front-row look at how curated rooms, product launches and community moments work in other markets, and she brought that energy back to Australia. She grew the IRL by Amber community to 5,000 people in 15 months and built her LinkedIn platform to 9,000 followers in 18 months.
