Tuesday 12 October, 12pm-1pm
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Professor Kate Smith-Miles and Alison Harcourt AO (Photo: The Australian)
In this public lecture, Professor Kate Smith-Miles and Alison Harcourt AO will discuss how everyday decisions – made by governments and corporations, and everyday people when using apps like Google Maps - are powered by optimisation techniques. We will take a whirlwind tour through some of the breakthrough ideas that have enabled optimisation techniques to help us make decisions faster, better and cheaper.
Some of these breakthrough ideas have been due to female ingenuity, and on this Ada Lovelace Day we will pay tribute to the game-changing contributions of two more remarkable women – Ailsa Land and Alison Harcourt (née Doig).
Their idea changed the course of optimisation technique development, and paved the way for optimisation to have the impact we see in the world today. We will hear Alison tell the tale of their idea and what happened next.
We will also look at the future challenges of optimisation, and the opportunities for new ideas to continue to create impact in the world.