Meet the ASRI Board of Directors : Brett Biddington.

The following is the first in a series of articles introducing you to the ASRI Directors.

Brett Biddington is a consultant to government and the private sector. He provides advice on space matters and has more general interests in community resilience and risk management, notably in the electronic and information systems domains. He also addresses broader questions of institutional behaviour including leadership, strategy, culture, organisational design and technology adoption against backgrounds of uncertainty and change.

Between 2002 and 2009 he was a member of Cisco Systems’ global space team performing a very long term market creation role. The team’s principal focus was to encourage all involved in space activities to move to open data and communications standards and to take advantage of internet technologies wherever possible. The team was responsible for developing the Internet Router In Space (IRIS) program and a software router was launch on a commercial satellite, as a secondary payload, in November 2009.

Brett chairs the Australian Space Industry Chamber of Commerce. He also sits on several boards and a number of national and industry advisory and committees. These include:

* Australia Telescope Steering Committee (Ministerial appointment)
* Australian Space Industry Innovation Council (Ministerial appointment)
* The Kokoda Foundation (board member)
* Australian Space Research Institute (board member)
* Giant Magellan Telescope Project Oversight Committee
* Antarctic Astronomy Advisory Committee
* Advisory Board of the Institute for Telecommunications Research at the University of South Australia.

Brett left the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 2002 on completion of almost 23 years of service. He was an intelligence and security specialist before moving into the capability development arena where he sponsored a wide range of command and control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare projects. These included the Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar project and a number of classified and unclassified space initiatives. He also sponsored a substantial portfolio of research within the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

Brett graduated from LaTrobe University Melbourne in 1974 with a BA(Hons) degree, majoring in politics. He was a member of the Australian Diplomatic Service and a lecturer in politics and public administration at the Canberra College of Advanced Education before joining the RAAF.