Professor John Mo obtained his PhD from Loughborough University, in Manufacturing Engineering. He is Professor of Manufacturing Engineering and formerly Head of Manufacturing Engineering Discipline in School of Engineering at RMIT University. Prior to joining RMIT, he was Senior Principal Research Scientist in CSIRO and led several teams including Manufacturing Systems and Infrastructure Network Systems in the Division of Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology. His expertise includes system integration, data communication, sensing and signal diagnostics. In his 11 years in CSIRO, he led a team of 15 professional research staff worked on risks analysis algorithms, electricity market simulation, wireless communication, fault detection and production scheduling. He was the project leader for many large-scale government projects including productivity improvement in furnishing industry and consumer goods supply chain integration.

Professor Ron Beckett is an Engineers Australia Fellow, and holds a Doctor of Business Administration (UWS) based on research into ways of implementing organisational learning concepts in a high technology company. He has more than 25 years' experience in R&D, operations and strategic management in international aerospace manufacturing, and more than 10 years management consulting experience. He works at the academia - industry interface and has written more than 100 papers related to innovation, collaboration and knowledge management. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Swinburne University of Technology Business School, and lectures in some Masters of Engineering subjects at RMIT.