Woodside CTO takes out Benchmarks Industrial category

Woodside Energy's chief technology officer Shaun Gregory has won the Industrial category in the 2017 iTnews Benchmark Awards for his industry-leading application of artificial intelligence and cognitive computing.

Shelly Kalms

His team's experiments with the burgeoning technology have made Woodside one of the enterprises to watch for guidance on how to succeed in the field.

Gregory kicked off his efforts with a cognitive system that let staff delve into 30 years of data through one interface. He has since grown his cognitive instances to 12, encompassing everything from human resources to geotechnical data.

The team has also built a virtual avatar that staff can ask for help searching data across all the oil and gas giant's enterprise systems.

Judges commended Gregory for his courage taking advantage of the nascent technology, and for cementing Woodside as a leader in the field.

Accepting the award on behalf of Gregory was data science manager Shelley Kalms.

"This award could not have been possible without the passionate, collaborative, innovative team that we have got," Kalms said.

"We are very proud of what we are doing in the cognitive space and what we are doing is super super fun. This award means a lot and the recognition is huge. Thank you."

Gregory managed to edge out worthy rivals in an extremely tight category. Rob Downing from Hanson Australia scored a finalist spot for his work turning a complex materials science problem into a powerful algorithm, and Qantas' Chris Taylor was recognised for the airline's multifaceted migration to the public cloud.

Winners were announced at the iTnews Benchmark Awards held as part of Adapt Venture's CIO Edge Experience at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne.