Hey there. Who are we speaking with and what’s your role in coordinating Pause Fest and could you please tell us a little about it?
My name is George Hedon and I’m the founder of Pause Fest. I wear many hats throughout the year, however I’m mostly responsible for the program curating and bringing it all together. Pause is Australia’s premier creative tech conference and the festival, with its mission to bring the world’s key influencers, acts as the innovation catalyst and positions Melbourne on the world map.
Pause Fest is unique in that it provides a platform for creative, technological and business-oriented people to collaborate and realise common goals. Why is there a lack of communication between these factions in the working world?
Pause 2016 is split in three streams, because those represent three pillars of the startup – you need all three to run the business. All three also represent very different kinds of people and personalities yet they all need to work together. It’s fair to compare it to the left and right brain or in fact the irrational to rational. I wouldn’t say there is a lack of the communication within these factions of the business, I just think they can be improved as all of them need to be in the perfect sync to run successful business. In 2016, Pause is focusing on how our programming can improve your business by providing engaging, inspiring and thought provoking content, hands-on upskilling, and specially engineered networking events.
This year, your speakers include Adriana Gascoigne of Girls in Tech and Jillian Kenny of FYA. Can you tell us a little about these talented people?
We couldn’t be happier to bring Adriana Gascoigne from Girls in Tech from San Francisco to open their Australian chapter in Melbourne. This is Pause giving back to the community of female entrepreneurs who are in the tech industry or wish to enter it. Girls in Tech will offer support and encourage women to reach their full potential and become successful. This is how we support gender equality, by providing a solution to the ecosystem and not just at the event. Adriana will be talking about the personal branding at the event and introducing GIT to all Melbournians.
Jillian Kenny was named in 2014’s 100 Most Influential Australian Women, is the Founding Director of Machinam, and will appear in the panel with the Foundation of Young Australians alongside Jacob Lindsay and Mirai Kirsanovs talking about the future of work. The FYA panel is scheduled on the Business Day conference and it’s moderated by Andrew Brough, Director of Changemaking and Youth Enterprise, FYA.
You guys have said that “Pause Fest stands for the content you can’t Google.” Can you elaborate on this point?
Our audience is super smart so this is our way to say that Pause content is unique and of the highest quality that even Google can’t find it. We are very critical when picking the right speakers from the submissions and have strict guidelines of how we prefer content to be presented. We help our partners activate their brands at the event as well. Having a logo on the media wall is just not good enough for us, our partners, and attendees. There needs to be bigger value than that. Pause is about bringing unique experiences and stimulating the senses. Three days is just enough time to soak it all in and form the new connections.
As someone is in the know, what do you expect the world to look like in terms of technological advancement in 100 years?
With the accelerating technological advancements we see at the moment and in the near future, predicting 100 years from now seems super scary to me. I think Bio-Tech will be so advanced that we’ll be experimenting and upgrading ourselves if not creating new living organisms and we’ll have advanced robots as pets. Travel to space and Mars will be like traveling to another continent.
PAUSE FEST 2016 goes down from Monday February 8 – Sunday February 14. Check pausefest.com.au for more details.
