Our Events

For more information on events and sponsorship, please contact the Business Events team via frgevents@fairfaxmedia.com.au

National Infrastructure Summit

Following the success of last year’s event, the Australian Financial Review’s National Infrastructure Summit returns, bigger and better, in 2017. This year, the focus is on driving growth through smarter, more efficient cities – and we are lining up the best of the best from Australia and abroad to work through the various planning, funding and delivery issues that are holding our cities back.

Over 300 of Australia’s top investors, planners, contractors, advisers and policy-makers at what is the nation’s premier infrastructure event.

Higher Education Summit

With the Turnbull government recently returned with only a wafer-thin majority, and the promise of a volatile and potentially hostile senate, the higher education reform agenda seems very much in doubt. So where to now for higher education?

Is deregulation dead in the water? What of the demand-driven system, critics of which are growing increasingly bold? How employable are our graduates – and what outcomes can they show for their investment in higher education? How will we solve the research funding conundrum? Can we maintain our position in the international education market? And how will our universities have to transform themselves, both internally and in their relationships with the outside world, in order to flourish over the next decade?

With the incisive, independent style it is known for, the AFR Higher Education Summit 2016 will once again interrogate prevailing Higher Education policies and practices, and showcase true, transformational innovation from Australia and abroad – all with an eye to uncovering the critical forces that will shape the competitive Higher Education landscape in the years ahead.

AFR Innovation Summit

Thriving and surviving the 4th Industrial Revolution

The innovation agenda has failed to impress disgruntled voters. Yet technological disruption appears to be gaining pace as it transforms the business landscape. As well as dealing with the competitive threats, how can Australian government and business exploit the opportunities this fourth industrial revolution throws up?

Discussing the policy framework for transforming Australia’s innovation agenda during this unique and unprecedented time, the summit examines how organisations from the blue chip to the start-up are grappling with formulating, implementing and measuring the success of their innovation initiatives to embrace these opportunities fully. The two-day summit will look closely at policy settings, systems and values that can better serve Australians as we ride the technological wave. It will also provide a platform to discuss ethical issues, values and legislating and regulating emerging technologies such as the internet of things (IoT) , artificial intelligence/machine learning and much more. The summit will highlight Australian initiatives that truly make us world leaders whilst investigating the pathways to success, inspiring Australians to embrace a global market and competition at an opportune time.

Women of Influence program.

Future plans for The Australian Financial Review Women of Influence program.

After five fantastic years, we want to take some time out to refresh the awards program and plan ways to improve how Women of Influence  could broaden and deepen its engagement with the community.

 

The 100 Women of Influence Awards will return in  October 2018.

 

We will also launch a special Women of  Influence Summit. This will provide a platform for Australia's most influential and trailblazing women to share their strategies for change and visions for the future.

The prestigious 100 Women of Influence  Awards will continue its tradition of celebrating the bold, energetic women who capture the spirit of progress. 

We will be back in touch later this year to let you know when nominations are open for the sixth 100 Women of Influence  Awards for Excellence and further information regarding the Summit. 

 If you wish to contact us, please email 100women@ fairfaxmedia.com.au.

Kind regards, 

Women of Influence Team

AFR National Energy Summit

The Australian Financial Review is pleased to announce our inaugural National Energy Summit, designed to find a political and industry consensus on the way out of Australia’s gathering energy crisis.

While becoming one of the world’s biggest energy exporters, a decade of political division over climate change policy has undermined Australia’s traditional competitive advantage in cheap power generated from fossil fuels. A national carbon pricing scheme was dismantled before it could become fully operational. Yet renewed increases in electricity and gas costs threaten energy-intensive processing industries.

The national electricity market has struggled to cope with the mandated expansion of Australia’s potentially rich supply of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources, threatening the stability of the grid and blackouts such as South Australia’s state-wide system failure in September 2016. Technological disruption could destabilise the grid further or help it to accommodate more dispersed power sources.

At The Australian Financial Review Business Summit in March, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared a national energy crisis, prompted by looming shortages of gas amid the expansion of LNG exports from Queensland and state government environmental restrictions on gas development, particularly in NSW and Victoria.

AFR Retail Summit

In recent years, Australian retail has proved remarkably resilient in the face of a turbulent global economic backdrop and increased competition from overseas players. But our retailers can only stare down global challenges so long, and it seems clear that they will soon have to fight harder – and smarter – than ever before if they are to maintain current rates of sales growth. But what is the role of government, regulators and the sector as a whole in removing barriers to competition and encouraging retailers to pursue world-class productivity and innovation?

The Australian Financial Review is proud to announce the return of its annual Retail Summit, a high-profile, independent and outwardly-focussed platform for retail leaders to discuss the future of retail in Australia and lay out the case for reform. We expect 200+ high-level attendees from retail and government, with extensive coverage in the AFR.