For our last event of 2016, we have speakers talking about Melbourne as a space for start-up culture, the HIV cure and the computer game genre.

Our friends at Mr Wow’s Emporium will be hosting us with cold beers whilst the Burger Boys serve up juicy burgers. Be there and be square!

Tuesday, 6 December 2016
at Mr Wow’s Emporium
97b Smith Street, Fitzroy

Doors 7pm/$5

Back to the lectures at hand:
*Presentation 1
Why Melbourne? business, startups, entrepreneurship
by Michelle Mannering

Description: What is it about Melbourne that makes it so awesome? There’s events running all the time, and we have culture festivals. Expos and conventions are a highlight in the city, hackathons are a growing phenomenon, and business is expanding. Big companies are setting up their HQs here, and we’re still sitting as the most livable city in the world. What have we got that makes us special?

Bio: Coming from both a Science and Arts background at the University of Melbourne, Michelle spent the bulk of last year as the Events Coordinator for Carlton Connect. Running a multitude of events around innovation, technology, science, the arts, and entrepreneurship gave her great insights into the professional culture of Melbourne. Not only has she co-founded a company, Michelle is heavily involved in the startup ecosystem from running hackathons to MCing, speaking, and facilitating a range of events. Through these functions, Michelle has grown her network incredibly in both depth and scope, making her the Ambassador for Future Assembly, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and AngelHack.

*Presentation 2
The HIV Cure
by Talia Mota

Description:  Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has greatly improved the lives of people living with HIV by reducing viral load to undetectable, thus preventing the development of AIDS. However, given toxicities associated with ART as well as continued stigma and discrimination people living with HIV face worldwide, there is an absolute need to discover a cure for HIV. The biggest barrier to HIV cure is the HIV reservoir hiding silently in various anatomical locations of the body, including the peripheral blood and gut associated lymphoid tissue. One strategy to purge there reservoirs is called “shock and kill” where we attempt to shock the virus out of hiding and kill the infected cells, with hopes to eradicate HIV from the individual. Talia’s work focuses on investigating molecular tools that shock the virus out of hiding.

Bio: Talia is an HIV Cure Researcher at the Peter Doherty Institute at the University of Melbourne, nearly finished with her PhD. She has a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Davis, where she majored in molecular genetics, and a Master of Public Health from the University of Melbourne, where she majored in epidemiology and biostatistics. Her dream in life is to contribute to a cure for HIV in a meaningful way, inspired by her amazing friends living with HIV as well as her experience working with woman and children living with HIV and AIDS in Cambodia.

*Presentation 3
Roguelike-like-like: How a niche computer game genre exploded
by Xavier Ho

Description: In the early days of Unix, when computers were mere text processors, when all of the internet users fit in a phone book, a video game exploded. Rogue, in all of 80 by 24 characters, was a game shrouded of mystery and excitement. Internet, open source, and mailing lists made possible a community who will carry on the legacy decades to come. Gone were the days of ASCII in mainstream video games. Graphics cards and parallel processors came, however, the spirit of roguelike games linger on. This talk will take you through a journey spanning 40 years, back to the first ever text adventure game that would influence the game to be, Rogue. Let us step through the windows of time.

Bio: Xavier Ho is a curiosity-driven designer, researcher and software engineer. He currently works for CSIRO creating interactive data visualisations. Pursuing a PhD part-time at University of Sydney keeps him busy, and sometimes he wonders about machines and humans and that philosophical lot. Previously, Xavier worked in a Sydney startup doing computer vision work, freelanced as a videographer, and taught a handful of programming classes to university design students. His passion lies somewhere in the spectrum of chocolates, video games, and a better world.