Jeganathan Janarthana (Jega) obtained Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka and then completed Masters degree in Electrical Engineering at Montana State University in United States of America. Subsequently he worked in USA and South Africa.

Jega joined the Department of Defence in May 1999 as an Engineer with Navy Materiel Requirements Branch. He later worked as a Project Engineer with the Mine Hunter Coastal Project and Defence Wide Area Communication Network Project.

In December 2004 on promotion Jega took up the position of Sustainment Support Manager at Amphibious & Afloat Support System Program Office in Garden Island. Subsequently he moved to Canberra to take up the position of Deputy Director of Engineering in Electronic Systems Division.

Presently he is Deputy Director Professionalisation in Joint Systems Division responsible for training and developing Engineers and Technical Officers. In addition to this he is also responsible for mentoring Engineers towards achieving Chartered Professional Engineer status.

Since joining Defence he has had functional responsibility in the areas of:

• Engineering
• Project Management
• Contract Management
• Finance Management and

Jega has been involved with Engineers Australia for many years. He has served as a member of Information, Telecommunications, Electronics & Electrical committee and as a member of the Electrical College Board. He has also served as a Panel member for CPEng Interviews.

Jega follows cricket closely and listens to Tamil music (his mother language) and enjoys reading autotrophies of world leaders.

If elected to the ITEE College Board, I will work with other members towards Engineers developing Leadership skills and achieving greater success in their career. I believe Engineers Australia has to engage in a proactive manner with Australian Universities in developing their ITEE courses for Engineers.

Candidate Disclaimer: The view represented in this statement is that of the Candidate and not Engineers Australia.

Ambarish Natu received his Bachelor of Engineering in Instrumentation and Control from the University of Pune, India in 1999 and Master of Engineering (Research) in Electrical from The University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2003 for the thesis title “Error Resilience in JPEG2000”. This thesis formed the framework for a new international standard ISO/IEC 15444-11 also known as JPEG 2000 over Wireless.

After graduating from UNSW, Ambarish has held positions as a visiting researcher in Italy and Taiwan, also worked for industry in United Kingdom and the United States of America and in recent years has been working for the Australian Government.

Since 2002 Ambarish has been involved in the development of five international standards under the auspices of the International Standards Organization (ISO) popularly known as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). He is the recipient of the ISO/IEC certificate for contributions to technology standards.

Ambarish is highly active in the area of international standardization and voicing Australian concerns in the area of JPEG and MPEG (Motion Pictures Experts Group) standardization. Recently, he initiated an effort in the area of standardization relating to Privacy and Security in the Multimedia Context.

In 2015, Ambarish was the recipient of the prestigious Neville Thiele Award and the Canberra Professional Engineer of the Year by Engineers Australia. Ambarish currently works as an IT Architect within the Enterprise Architecture Team within the Australian Taxation Office where he's responsible for managing the data modelling capability.

Ambarish currently also serves as a committee member on the ITEE College Board and served on the the ITEE Canberra Branch committee. Ambarish is also the Treasurer of the IEEE ACT Section (2017 & 2018) and in the past has served as its Vice-Chair (2015 & 2016).

As part of my contributions to the ITEE College board, I plan to bring in the diversity of international experience in industry, academia and now government in promoting CPD activities within ITEE College.

Candidate Disclaimer: The view represented in this statement is that of the Candidate and not Engineers Australia.

Gavin Strack holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics and Communications) from Curtin University, and has held a number of engineering roles in the Defence, Telecommunications, Mining industries. With 20 years of experience on both sides of the client/contractor relationship, Gavin has a history of value delivery and collaboration across a wide range of working environments – from small internal teams, to multi-national operations. Gavin also holds a Master of Business Administration and is a Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE).

Gavin is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of Convergio, an engineering consultancy specialising in delivering yield optimisation solutions to operations through data analytics, automation, robotics and machine learning/AI. These solutions have delivered step-change results to client operations and have won industry awards in Berlin and San Francisco. Prior to Convergio, Gavin held roles as the Manager – Process Control for Barrick Australia Pacific & Goldfields, and Lead Control Systems Engineer for Sinclair Knight Mertz on the $3.6B Rio Tinto Cape Lambert Port B Project.

Gavin is passionate about engineering’s potential to improve the world. He is also passionate about making engineering an attractive offering to both students seeking a fulfilling career, and executives seeking technical input on strategy. Gavin is already involved in Engineers’ Australia with the EA Digital Working Group and is excited to increase his involvement by nominating to join the ITEE College Board.

Gavin is also the current WA Treasurer for the Australian Information Industry Association.

Candidate Disclaimer: The view represented in this statement is that of the Candidate and not Engineers Australia.