Welcome to

The Pearcey Foundation

The Pearcey Foundation is a non-profit organisation founded in 1998 in memory of a great Australian ICT pioneer Dr Trevor Pearcey. The Foundation operates broadly across the Australian Information Communication Technologies (ICT) sector, from celebrating achievements through national and state awards, to being involved in debate and public policy on critical national issues such as productivity, the digital economy and national infrastructure.

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Pearcey 2023

Another year of exciting award programs, dynamic thought leadership discussions, a galvanizing Oration and a range of events and programs to celebrate our Australian ICT heritage and inspire our youth to a future in ICT.

Checkout the calendar on our events page or follow the links below for these flagship events.

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This is our 25^th year of awards, focussed exclusively on outstanding individuals drawn from across our vast geography.

We present 11 awards each year and have done so for a long time - recognising over 160 Australian ICT luminaries and entrepreneurs, as highlighted on this website.

Heritage Projects - many activities including publication of an Australian IT history book, preservation of museums, and submission of an IEEE milestone for CSIRAC.

Pearcey 2023 Highlights

Pearcey National Awards

Hall of Fame - Aidan Tudehope, David Tudehope, Richard White

Medal - Aidan Tudehope, David Tudehope, Jordan Green, Wayne Fitzsimmons

Pearcey Oration

Pearcey Day@Scienceworks

Australia 4.0

Ada Lovelace Day

The Pearcey Foundation has always championed an inclusive approach to life and to the ICT sector in particular. Our programmes promote inclusion by reaching across boundaries created by dscriminatory bias and by holding out the ICT heros and heroines we recognise with our awards as exemplars to our youth and to the broader community.

One of our favourite efforts is the celebration of Ada Lovelace Day. In 2023, we are pleased to have partnered with the Monash University Faculty of Information Technology.

Latest News

Nov 19, 2023

Vale Ariel Liebman

In Memoriam

Professor Ariel Liebman was a key supporter of Australia 4.0. He worked at the intersection of ICT and the future renewable grid. Ariel was going to moderate one of the Australia 4.0 sessions but, since he was to be overseas at the time, he arranged for other colleagues to assist. Sadly, Ariel passed away after a brief illness on November 9^th 2023 and will be sorely missed by his family, friends and colleagues.

Dr Ariel Liebman was a Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems in the Department of Data Science and AI at Monash University. From 2020, he was Director of the Monash Energy Institute, and in 2022 he set up and led the RACE for Networks Program in the RACE for 2030 CRC. The Program optimises the Australian electricity grid through customer engagement, distributed energy resources and network integration.

Ariel’s active research in the Energy sector focused on optimisation and AI-based decision support tools for operation and planning of smart-grids, microgrids and large-scale energy systems. Dr Liebman received his PhD in Physics (Quantum Optics) from University of Queensland, Australia.

May he rest in peace and his memory be a blessing upon the community.

National Awards Announced

On October 31st in Sydney the Pearcey Foundation celebrated its jubilee year and presented its national awards.

The premier lifetime achievement award, the Pearcey Medal, was presented to brothers Aidan and David Tudehope, co-founders of Macquarie Technology Group.

For their lifetimes of achievement, Richard White, Founder and CEO of Wisetech Global, and Professor Jean Armstrong, engineer, inventor, teacher and researcher, were inducted into the Pearcey Hall of Fame.

Selected from among the state and territory recipients of the Pearcey Entrepreneur Award, recipient of the Victorian award, Didier Elzinga, Founder and CEO of CultureAmp, was awarded the Pearcey National Entrepreneur Award.

These important recognitions of our heroes and heroine of the Australian ICT sector were reported in the Startup Daily, iTWire, Information Age, CRN, Data Center News Asia, CFOtech Australia, Channel Life Australia, IT Brief Australia, Telco News Australia and elsewhere.

Oct 9, 2023

National Awards Gala

25 years ago, the Foundation launched on its mission to celebrate, support and encourage Australians who engage in, and excel at, the invention, development and use of information, communication and computing technologies (ICT) for the betterment of our society.

Building on the work of Dr Trevor Pearcey and his invention of the first digital computer in Australia, which put us at the global forefront of the digital age, we have recognised outstanding Australians:

161 Pearcey Entrepreneur Awards
62 Pearcey Hall of Famers
24 Pearcey Medals

Peer-selection is the hallmark of the Pearcey awards. Selected by past award recipients, this is the community recognising the significant achievements of its peers.

Awards

The Pearcey Foundation's annual awards recognise and celebrate outstanding individuals in Australian ICT.

National Awards • State Awards • Nominations

The Heritage Project

The Pearcey Foundation intends to extend the Heritage Project well beyond Phase One (the book) – with the aim to become ‘the’ central repository – hosting a ‘virtual museum’ of Australia’s computing artefacts, documents and oral histories from key players.

The Project

Kind Words

Australians have all too often seen themselves as observers rather than participants in the digital revolution, but that does not do justice to our history. The Pearcey Foundation plays a very important role in highlighting the real contributions Australians have made in the past, and in so doing will help inspire the next generation of Australian digital innovators.

Charlie Day
Former CEO, Innovation and Science Australia

The Pearcey Foundation’s project to document Australia’s achievements in the computer age is a critically important endeavour. A central repository, that documents the central role of our universities and CSIRO and the individual contributions of academics and entrepreneurs, will be an essential resource for future policy makers and for students, research workers and entrepreneurs.

Alex Zelinsky AO
Vice-Chancellor and President, University of Newcastle

Australians are a nation of storytellers. Stories make us laugh and they make us cry, they remind us who we are and they inspire us, and let us celebrate our successes and failures. Australia has much to celebrate when it comes to the digital age, from pioneering work in computer science through to innovative cloud services. The Pearcey Foundation Heritage Project will be an inspiration to future generations of Australians.

Founder
Australian Ocean Lab and Former Engineering Director, Google Australia

Initiatives

The Pearcey Foundation is actively involved in many initiatives to help promote and accelerate the Australian ICT industry.

Thought Leadership • Australia 3.0 • ICT Heritage • Pearcey Institute

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In memory of

Dr Trevor Pearcey

The Pearcey Foundation Inc. was established in 1998 to raise the profile of the Australian Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Industry and profession. It was created in the memory of one of the greatest pioneers of the Australian ICT industry, Dr Trevor Pearcey.