Speakers.
We are excited to bring you a range of speakers. As each speaker is confirmed, we will provide the information here.
Former Senator / Dual Olympian
Puddle Jumpers
Rotary International Director Elect
Welcoming Australia
Australian Rotary Health
Nova Peris OAM
Australia’s first Aboriginal woman elected to Federal Parliament and the first Aboriginal and Northern Territorian to win an Olympic Gold Medal. A dual Olympian and the first Olympic torchbearer for the Sydney 2000 Games.
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A former Senator for the Northern Territory, Nova is a passionate campaigner for Aboriginal rights and reconciliation in Australia. She has also actively campaigned on issues of mental & physical health, Racism, No Nuclear Waste Dump at Muckaty Station NT, Free the Aboriginal Flag Campaign, Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Treaty, Djab Wurrung Save the Trees campaign and many more.
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Nova Peris Foundation
​​The Nova Peris Foundation is a not for profit organisation that is committed to empowering Aboriginal people to achieve life excellence though healthy nutrition, clean water and opportunities to participate in sport, education, health, spiritual wellbeing and cultural activities.
Ian Steel OAM
Kickstart for Kids
Ian established Kickstart For Kids, a not for profit organisation, after mentoring “at risk” primary school children. In 2009 Ian noticed that the children he was mentoring were always hungry and could not concentrate properly. After consulting with teachers and students it was discovered that of kids in lower socio-economic areas were coming to school without breakfast and no lunch.
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A builder by trade, Ian started making sandwiches to take to schools before he went to work. In 2011 he founded KickStart for Kids on the belief that every child, regardless of their social or economic background, should have an equal chance.
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On Australia Day 2017 Steel was recognised in the General Division of the Order of Australia for his service to children through social welfare programs.
Brad Chilcott AM
Welcoming Australia
Brad has worked for over a decade to create diverse, collaborative stakeholder coalitions with the ability to drive systemic change and achieve meaningful outcomes for vulnerable people in a range of sectors including migration, multiculturalism, settlement, Australian Aid, education, mental health, social housing and LGBTIQ+ inclusion.
Brad is the convenor of the South Australia, Queensland and Dad’s Thrive By Five Alliances, campaigning for universal access to quality early education as part of a fully stitched together early childhood development system.
Brad is the founder and a Board Director of Welcoming Australia, a national movement cultivating a culture of welcome for people seeking asylum, refugees and other new arrivals to Australia.
Melanie Tate
Puddle Jumpers
Melanie is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Puddle Jumpers - a charitable organisation with approximately 700 volunteers. Puddle Jumpers provide services, camps and activity days to children and young people in South Australia, primarily those who don't live with their birth parents. Puddle Jumpers has now expanded to providing food assistance programs to over 1,200 families weekly through food relief programs throughout South Australia, in addition to providing outreach support to the Coober Pedy community.
Faith Coleman
Environmentalist
Faith comes from a family of environmentalists and primary producers, with multiple generations of her family working on the ecology of salinas, saltlakes and estuaries, so she was (quite literally) born with her feet in saline muds. She spent her childhood exploring tidal deltas in some of the most remote regions of Australia, as witnessing some of the most pivotal conservation and indigenous land rights campaigns in the last forty years.
Faith sits on a number of research-focussed organisations, including the International Society for Salt Lake Research and the Coorong Environmental Trust. She is heavily involved with a number of catchment or seascape community initiatives, both in Australia and abroad, working with disadvantaged communities or First Nations people to restore productive coastal lagoons and estuaries.
Suresh Marcandan
Australian Rotary Health
Having joined the Rotary Club of Melbourne upon his return to live in Australia in 2019, Suresh has also served as D9800 Chair of Australian Rotary Health (Australia’s largest private funder of research into mental illness – https:///australianrotaryhealth.org.au ) since 2021. Suresh has been a very active Rotarian for 37 years and due to his work commitments in different countries, he has been a member of eight different Rotary clubs in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka, and served on the Boards of Directors of all the clubs in which he has been a member. He is the recipient of the prestigious Rotary International “Four Avenues of Service” citation awarded by PRIP Bichchai Rattakul, in recognition of his work in the response, relief, and rehabilitation of victims of the South Asian Tsunami in 2004 at which time he was the Secretary of the Rotary Club of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Suresh is the Managing Partner of People Power International Pty. Ltd., a one-stop-shop for your business advisory and management consulting needs in corporate governance (ESG) and sustainability, that delivers value-adding total solutions producing board effectiveness and efficiency through world best class corporate governance architecture.
Jennifer Scott
Rotary International Director Elect
Jennifer lives in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia. As an environment lawyer and a mediator, she is passionate about peace building and ecological sustainability. Together with her husband, Ian, Jennifer has led teams of project volunteers to Pursat in Cambodia, and a Vocational Training Team to Mongolia.
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A member of the Rotary Club of Central Blue Mountains, Jennifer served as Governor in 2007-08. She was the chair of the 2024 Singapore International Convention Committee. Jennifer has served as a Training Leader, Seminar Trainer, and Moderator at previous International Assemblies. She is a Rotary Foundation cadre for the Environment and WASH. She is an incoming director for 2025-2027.
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Jennifer has been awarded the Rotary Foundation's Citation for Meritorious Service. She and Ian are major donors, and bequest society members. Jennifer is a Community Fellow of Western Sydney University.
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In 2023 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to community in a range of organisations. Her hobbies include trail running, hiking, and gardening. In 2019 Jennifer walked the Camino de Santiago. This past summer, she walked the Chemin du Puy in France.
Charlie Allen APM
Rotary Peace Fellow
Charlie Allen APM is a seasoned professional with over 30 years of experience in leadership and peacebuilding. With a background in the security sector, including 35 years with Victoria Police, Charlie has expanded his expertise globally. His specialties include peacebuilding, process facilitation, resilience building, leadership development, and organizational change.
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Charlie holds a Master's in Leadership and Organisational Change and has completed postgraduate studies in Peace and Conflict Prevention, Good Governance, and Human Rights. He has facilitated Positive Peace workshops worldwide and currently leads Space Melbourne, focusing on process facilitation, resilience building and trauma informed peace building
Recent projects include a trauma-informed peacebuilding project with the Alliance for Middle East Peace Building in Israel and Palestine and Resilience building for peace builders in Myanmar.
Charlie is a Rotary Peace Fellow alum (Chulalongkorn 2010), the Immediate Past President of the Rotary Club of Sydney and is active in peacebuilding within Rotary. He is a Rotary Positive Peace Activator and a Peace and Conflict Prevention Cadre member. He is active in recruiting Rotary Peace Fellows by coaching candidates to successful applications.
