Ownership shapes how we organise resources, assign rights, and understand value. As society evolves, new forms of ownership will continue to emerge, raising complex legal, technological, and ethical questions that will affect us all.
The Future of Ownership will explore key discussions, from Indigenous perspectives on land as custodianship, to the ownership of personal data, inventions, and knowledge in a digital world. It will also consider enduring questions. Who will own your DNA and the information it contains? What rights will define ownership in practice, and how far will they extend?
Panellists will examine how ownership operates across law, commerce, information technology, and the arts, including the role of copyright, patents, and privacy law in governing intangible assets. The discussion will also address emerging technologies such as blockchain, ownership tokens, and smart contracts, and their implications for financial systems and control.
Bringing together experts from academia, government, and industry, this research showcase offers a forward-looking exploration of one of the most fundamental concepts shaping our future.
The Future of 2026 series is presented in partnership with Lendlease.
5pm: Doors Open
5.30pm - 7.30pm: Main Event
For those who cannot attend in-person, the event will be livestreamed via the Melbourne Connect Vimeo Channel.
Moderator: Jon Faine AM
Jon Faine is a Vice Chancellors Fellow at The University of Melbourne for 2022 and 2023, attached to The Melbourne Law School but with a roving commission across the entire university.
Until October 2019 Jon Faine was the host of the agenda-setting morning broadcast for ABC Radio in Melbourne for over twenty years.
For over thirty years, Jon has been in demand for conference keynote speeches, presentations, facilitation, and panel moderation. Specialising in complex matters of public policy, strategy, legal issues, technological challenge or cultural clashes, his work has covered every imaginable field.
Professor Glyn Davis AC
Professor Glyn Davis AC is a public policy specialist and interim Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne.
Prior to his current role Professor Davis served as Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Head of the Australian Public service from June 2022 until June 2025.
Professor Davis holds a first-class honours degree in Political Science from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and a PhD from the Australian National University (ANU). In 1988, Professor Davis undertook post-doctoral studies as a Harkness Fellow, with appointments at the University of California, Berkeley, the Brookings Institution in Washington DC and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Professor Emma Kowal
Distinguished Professor Emma Kowal is Professor of Anthropology and Associate Head (Research) of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University and founder and Co-Convenor of the Deakin Science and Society Network. She is a cultural and medical anthropologist who previously worked as a medical doctor and public health researcher in Indigenous health. Her research interests lie at the intersection of anthropology, science and technology studies (STS), and Indigenous studies. She was previously founding Deputy Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics at the Australian National University and Deputy Director of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation.
She is an award-winning researcher and educator, a Fellow of both the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts, a member of the Australian Heath Ethics Committee of the NHMRC, and Past President of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). She is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and sits on multiple international editorial and advisory boards. She has authored over 150 publications including the monograph Trapped in the Gap: Doing Good in Indigenous Australia and the collection Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World. Her latest book is Haunting Biology: Science and Indigeneity in Australia (Duke UP 2023).
Professor Maggie Walter
Maggie Walter (PhD; FASSA) is Palawa and Distinguished Professor of Sociology (Emerita) at the University of Tasmania. She is the author of seven books and over 100 journal articles and research chapters in the fields of Indigenous sociology, Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous methodology and she brings her expertise across these fields to the topic of open science and scholarship. Recent publications include Indigenous Sociology (Oxford 2023, lead editor with T. Kukutai, R. Henry & A. Gonzales) and Indigenous Quantitative Methodologies: from data deficit to data sovereignty (Routledge 2025 with C. Andersen, T. Kukutai and C. Gable). Maggie is a founding member of the Australian Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective (Maiam nayri Wingara) and an executive member of the Global Indigenous Data Alliance (GIDA). From 2021 to 2025 Maggie was a Commissioner on the Yoorook Justice Commission, Australia’s first truth telling Commission, inquiring into injustices against First Peoples in Victoria since colonisation.
Associate Professor Megan Prictor
Associate Professor Megan Prictor is a legal academic and researcher specialising in legal issues in emerging health technologies, and the regulation of health data. She is Associate Dean of the Juris Doctor degree at Melbourne Law School, where she also co-directs the Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX) research program. Her research expertise spans informed consent, the regulation of clinical technologies, privacy, and health data governance, with a special focus on genomics. Megan has produced over 50 peer-reviewed publications and 10 book chapters, and contributes widely to public discourse on legal issues in new health technologies.
Merida Sussex
Merida is the founder of MetaGen, a global initiative advancing data sovereignty in the creative industries, with a particular focus on music metadata and ensuring artists are paid fairly, quickly and transparently. As an artist and founder of Stolen Recordings — an award-winning independent record label established in London in 2005 — she brings lived experience to questions of creative ownership and rights.
Merida has served two terms on the boards of the Association of Independent Music (UK) and the Merlin Network. Currently she is a member of the UK Intellectual Property Office's Data Expert Working Group, established in response to the UK Streaming Enquiry, and sits on the WIPO AI Infrastructure Exchange Group. Her work sits at the intersection of policy, technology and the music industry, advocating for systems that give creators meaningful control over their work and their data.
