Following consideration of the latest health advice provided by our Commonwealth government on the projected major increase of Covid-19 infections throughout August, leading to federal and state public service agencies (and significant private sector businesses) directing staff to work from home, the program committee have just made the decision to change the summit dates to 16th - 17th November, where projections indicate a significant diminution of the risk. In particular, the Federal Health Minister, Mark Butler, the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly and their state government counterparts are urging and advocating return to remote working, with staff to work from home to help curb rising Covid-19 cases and other respiratory illnesses. We feel a primary need to address our duty of care for managing the health risk to attendees and secondarily, the associated risk of a poorly attended event if we were to proceed with the September dates. Additionally, we do not wish to be incidentally contributing to a Covid-sustained environment as a spreader event.

The summit will still be held at The Commonwealth Club; although this is a hybrid event, the majority of our attendees (over 90%) have registered to attend in-persons so far as well as majority of our international speakers, on this aspect alone, we feel that moving it to late spring would ensure we maximise our chances to host a successful networking event.