Founder & Director, Think Digital

I drew a bus 10 years before I won it. Manifesting ideas through visuals, solving real problems with XR & AI.

"We're fighting for people who don't get the same access as their city counterparts. We're out there on the frontlines."

Tim Gentle converted a bus into a 14-metre mobile classroom and brought VR, XR, drone and AI technology to regional, rural, and remote Australia. Then he pivoted – taking his innovation beyond our shores into new international markets. 

What you can learn about:

Innovation Under Constraints:
→ Limited connectivity? Build resilient systems from day one
→ Users can’t come to you? Bring the experience to them
→ Design for the edges, build better for everyone

Finding New Markets:
→ Regional challenges mirror global opportunities
→ Constraints breed innovations that scale unexpectedly
→ Breaking silos reveals markets others miss 

At LAST Conference Melbourne, Tim will demonstrate how his frontline experience and market pivots challenge how we think about accessible technology, innovation under constraints, and finding opportunities where others see limitations.

25+ years in digital innovation | TEDx Speaker | Queensland Government Digital Economy Week Keynote.

Engineering Manager, Ferocia

Breaking Through Growth: How Engineering Leadership Evolves from 50 to 200 People

At the start of 2023, Adel was promoted to Engineering Director at the Digital Division of Australia's most loved and trusted bank. The Digital Division was actually a startup that had been acquired just over a year earlier, having successfully launched a digital neo-bank (Up) into the market. At the time they had around 30 engineers, a customer base that loved them, an innovative product, and the ability to reliably ship to production multiple times a day.

The brief for the new role was clear: We need to double engineering (at least) within the next year—make sure we retain everything great that got us here.
Here's the good news: this is solvable. After a mild panic attack, they decided to focus on levelling up the skills of their Engineering Managers and supporting them through the challenges of growing an organisation fast. By doing this, they could ensure the hundred-and-one things that needed to happen would get done, and get done well.

This is the antidote to the doom-and-gloom stories you've been hearing. It's proof that you can grow fast AND grow well—that caring about people and delivering results aren't opposing forces. Adel will talk you through the reasoning, methodology, and outcomes of this approach, giving you a clear roadmap for growing manager capabilities in your own context.

In this session, Adel will talk through:

• Where Ferocia was at the start of 2023—30 engineers, loved product, multiple daily deployments
• The challenges they faced and the mandate to double engineering without losing quality, speed, or job satisfaction
• The freakout (yes, really—this part matters)
• The decision to focus on levelling up the Engineering Managers as the key to everything else
• Two critical factors for growing successful managers:

1. An effective toolkit
2. A regular peer support and feedback forum

• The methods used to develop both of these factors
• The outcomes nearly two years later—what worked, what they learned, and the roadmap you can use

Why This Matters for you

In an industry filled with layoff headlines and stories of growth gone wrong, this session offers something different: hope backed by evidence.

This embodies LAST's "get out of your silo" philosophy because the challenge of doubling engineering doesn't stay in engineering—it ripples across product roadmaps, design timelines, delivery schedules, and customer experience. The solution Adel shares isn't about adding bureaucracy; it's about investing in the people who connect vision to execution across all these disciplines.

You'll hear a story that actually worked: a team that doubled while maintaining shipping velocity, a customer base that stayed engaged, and a culture that kept what made it special. This isn't theory—it's a real blueprint from someone who lived through it.

Whether you're an engineering leader navigating growth, a product manager wondering why velocity dropped, a designer frustrated by longer feedback loops, or a delivery lead watching team dynamics shift, you'll gain practical insights into the organizational patterns that enable (or block) cross-functional success at scale.

Perfect for:

• Engineering leaders and managers facing rapid team growth
• Product managers and designers working with expanding engineering teams
• Delivery leads navigating organizational change
• Startup founders planning their next phase of growth
• Anyone curious about how to grow teams without losing what makes them great

Key Takeaways

You will leave with:

1. Renewed optimism that you can double a team while keeping what made it successful

2. A practical roadmap for developing Engineering Manager capabilities during rapid growth

3. Understanding of why manager development became the key to everything else working

4. Real examples of the methodology, reasoning, and actual outcomes—not just the theory

5. Strategies you can adapt to your own context, whether doubling from 30 to 60 or 100 to 200

6. Energy and inspiration from someone who successfully lived this challenge (and had a mild panic attack first)

Learning Outcomes

• Growing fast is a great problem to have—but if it isn't done mindfully, you'll break everything that got you there

• Focus matters: In times of rapid growth you won't have time to do everything well, so you have to focus on what's important

• Leaders as force multipliers: By investing in leaders who can support, manage, evolve, and troubleshoot growth, you'll get more output for less input

• Two things effective managers need: A broad toolkit and regular peer support and feedback

• It's achievable: You can help your managers with both without a significant investment of time and money—Adel will show you how

Bio

Adel Smee is an Engineering Director at Australia's most loved and fastest growing digital bank (Up).

She started in technology teaching programming, then moved into software engineering at Lonely Planet. After transitioning to management she moved to Zendesk just after IPO, riding the Silicon Valley growth train until it was time to get off.

Now she spends her days working at another scaleup, not just growing Up but also helping to support the technology transformation of the 167-year-old Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.

Adel loves solving problems at the intersection of business, technology and people, and loves working for a company that realises the best solutions always involve putting the people first.

Session Length: 35 minutes (30 min presentation + 5 min Q&A)
Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Content Stream: Leadership & Management

Lead Data Scientist and founding team member at Multitudes

Beyond the Hype: What's Really Happening When Engineering Teams Adopt AI

Description

Engineering leaders are facing enormous pressure to adopt AI tools, with vendors promising 2x, 5x, even 10x productivity gains. Some teams are seeing genuine improvements. Others are struggling with adoption, dealing with hallucinated code, or finding that AI tools create more work than they save.

The gap between promise and reality has never been wider—and  leaders are making million-dollar decisions based on marketing claims rather than evidence.

Dr. Vivek Katial and the team at Multitudes have been following over 500 developers globally and  analyzing usage, delivery and self-reported survey data from their teams who are navigating AI adoption right now. This isn't vendor case studies or aspirational think pieces—it's rigorous investigation into who the AI power users are, which tools and practices actually deliver value, and how leaders can successfully manage the human side of AI rollouts.

The research asks three critical questions:

Who are the AI power users, and what do they do differently? Not every engineer gets the same value from AI coding tools. Vivek's research identifies the specific practices, workflows, and approaches that separate successful adopters from those who struggle.

Which tools, use cases, and practices actually work? Beyond the marketing, which AI tools genuinely improve productivity and which fall short? The research examines real usage patterns to understand where AI delivers on its promises.

How do we measure impact in real teams? Randomized controlled trials aren't always practical. Vivek's team is developing methodologies to understand AI's impact in actual team environments—identifying what's working, for whom, and why.

Multitudes' 2025 research study examines the human dimensions of AI adoption: the wins, the worries, and what's actually changing in how teams work. It investigates how leaders are managing rollouts, the real impact on workflows and team dynamics, and what separates successful implementations from failed ones.

Why This Matters for LAST

AI's impact on software development has implications for everyone building digital products—not just engineers.

For Product Managers: If AI is genuinely improving developer productivity, how should roadmaps change? If adoption is slower than expected, how should organizations adjust planning? What does it mean for product work itself?

For Engineering Leaders: You need frameworks for evaluating AI tools and measuring genuine impact without creating surveillance cultures or unrealistic expectations.

For Organizational Leaders: You need realistic expectations about AI's productivity potential, based on data from actual teams rather than vendor claims.

For Cross-Functional Teams: When some disciplines are AI-accelerated and others aren't, how does collaboration change? What can other functions learn from how engineering is navigating this transition?

For Everyone: The lessons about AI adoption, measuring impact, and managing the human side of technology change apply across all disciplines evaluating AI tools or leading teams through transformation.

This embodies LAST's cross-functional philosophy because AI adoption doesn't stay in engineering—it ripples across product planning, design workflows, delivery schedules, and customer experience.

Perfect For

• Engineering leaders evaluating AI tools and managing team adoption
• Product managers wondering how AI will change development capacity and planning
• Technical practitioners curious about which AI tools actually deliver value
• Organizational leaders setting realistic expectations about AI's impact
• Anyone navigating technology adoption and change management
• Teams interested in evidence-based decision making over vendor hype

What You'll Learn

1. Data-driven insights into AI's actual impact on developer productivity (not vendor promises)
2. The AI power user profile – What practices distinguish engineers who get the most value from AI tools
3. Practical evaluation frameworks for assessing which AI tools and use cases deliver genuine benefits
4. Rollout strategies that work – How successful leaders introduce AI tools without creating resistance
5. Measurement approaches beyond traditional trials for understanding AI's impact in your team
6. Human factors that predict successful versus unsuccessful AI adoption
7. Realistic expectations for how AI will and won't transform software development

Speaker Bio

Dr. Vivek Katial is Lead Data Scientist and founding team member at Multitudes, where he leads R&D, data, and AI initiatives. He holds a PhD in Quantum Computing from the University of Melbourne and previously worked as a visiting PhD researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This combination of theoretical rigor and practical application uniquely positions him to analyze AI's impact on software development.

Vivek is also Executive Director at the Good Data Institute, connecting data professionals with nonprofits globally for social impact. His research at Multitudes collaborates with leading universities (Auckland, Zurich, George Mason, Victoria, Melbourne) to maintain academic independence and rigor.

Multitudes is a tool for engineering leaders who care about culture and performance, integrating with GitHub, Slack, and other workflow tools to provide insights on team health and collaboration patterns. Customers like StoryPark have reduced cycle time by 30% within two months using Multitudes' data-informed recommendations.

Learn more: www.multitudes.com/research

Session Length: 40-45 minutes (including Q&A)
Level: All levels
Content Stream: Software Engineering & Data Science / Leadership & Management