Our Team
Base Team
Alvaro Maz
Managing Director
Alvaro is an entrepreneur with a passion for public issues, technology and social change. In 2013 he launched his first venture, Creative Suburbs, an online platform to help more people make a difference in their cities. He then co-founded Code for Australia in late 2014 which led to launching Code for Aotearoa.
Alvaro’s background is in international development, philosophy and urban planning, none of which he has really practised. On his spare time he works on fun projects like this one and is also cooking plans to go sailing around the world.
Lina Patel
Chief Operations Officer
Lina is a facilitator and collaboration designer and makes sure all the Code for Australia programs (Fellowship, Academy, Tech for Non-Tech) are humming beautifully.She spends most of her time with people and teams in the Code for Australia community who know where they are headed; who aren’t sure how to get there; and are open to iteration.
People frikkin love her workshops and meetings.
Grace O'Hara
Head of Marketing
Grace is a digital native, a tech aficionado and lover of all things coffee. After cutting her teeth in start-up land, Grace spent a year travelling the world, seeing the power of technology in all shapes, sizes, and efficiencies.Grace loves telling meaningful stories and connecting people in authentic ways. In her spare time you might find her attempting to make edible things or learning how to swim.
Facilitators
Alec Sloman
Tech for Non Tech Lead
Alec Sloman is an educator, facilitator, and software developer with over 15 years of experience in IT.In the not too distant past, he worked as a Lead Instructor at General Assembly and as a Technical Recruiter at Lookahead Search where he gave career advice to hundreds of candidates and worked with many of the most prominent tech companies in Melbourne. He now spends most of his days running a code school in the heart of North Melbourne.
Alec is passionate about driving reform and improving lives with technology. Oh, and he loves hip hop.
Cam Elliott
Sandpit Lead
Cameron has a passion for supporting authentic leadership, innovation, collaboration, strategic thinking and wellbeing in organisations through effective facilitation, training and coaching.As a facilitator of the Sandpit Program, Cameron supports innovators from the public and private sector to collaborate on solving some of the toughest issues the public sector faces.
Sara Rickards
Sandpit Lead
Sara AKA The Sustainability Ninja and F**kgiver, is trained as both a Biomedical Scientist & Environmental Engineer. She is an ignitor of big ideas such as Re:Purpose for Good.Sara is a passionate connector, putting purpose and positive impact at the core of everything she does. She is on a mission to unlock human potential and specialises in creating connected and conscious communities.
In a previous life she was the Education For Sustainability Manager at Macquarie University, Co-host for the Un-school of Disruptive Design and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Board of Advisors
Kate Bennett Eriksson
Head of Innovation, PwC Australia
Kate’s experience and network spans across some of the most iconic digital businesses in the world such as Google, Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Kate has advised corporate boards of various businesses about how they can drive innovation across multiple industries of government, financial services, telecommunications and media.
Jithma Beneragama
Director - Digital Engagement, Dept. of Premier and Cabinet Victoria
A digital executive with international experience driving businesses to succeed, Jithma spent several years in the private sector. He now heads the digital engagement team at the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Dan Groch
Co-Founder and Entrepreneur
Jacob Lindsay
Co-founder & Digital Service Designer
Samantha Wijesinha
Ex-Fellow and Full Stack Developer
After many years managing and supporting technology projects within utilities, superannuation and not-for-profit industries, Sam took the leap and learned to code. In 2017, Sam graduated from the Full Stack Web Development Immersive Course at General Assembly, before combining her project management and web development skills as a Code for Australia Fellow.
Sam is passionate about digital technology and creating useful applications for humans. When not coding, Sam is geeking out on comics, reading and watching science fiction, and spending way too much money on holidays.
Current Fellows
Victor Nava
Government Partner: City of Melbourne
Kyreena Hay
Government Partner: City of Melbourne
Kyreena is a self-titled Human Centred Designer, using HCD for business strategy, services, and user experience. She started her career as a UI Designer and Frontend Developer, then found joy in ensuring the right things are made by understanding and including the humans those things affect.
She’s an avid skilled volunteer in the Human Rights sector, cyclist, and synchronised swimmer in the feminist performance group, The Clams. And before you ask; her accent is from South Africa and New Zealand, with an Australian twang sneaking in there.
Jonathan Castillo Bello
Government Partner: City of Melbourne
Jonathan is an software engineer from the Politécnico Grancolombiano (Colombian University). He is passionate about how the solutions in the digital space improves the user’s life and currently working in civic tech.
He has been building software in several areas (Government, E-commerce, Technological) in multiple roles across the software development process since 2008.
He also loves tennis, hanging out with friends and learning from different cultures.
Scout Quinn
Government Partner: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission
Jing Jing Wang
Government Partner: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission
Jing Jing is an Experience Designer. What gets her out of bed each morning is knowing that she’s doing something positive in this world. Outside of the fellowship, Jing Jing volunteers her time on the board of the Southern Migrant and Refugee Center. She is also a member of the Access and Inclusion Committee at the City of Casey Council.
When she gets the chance to play, Jing Jing loves to play Shadow of War, travel and try delicious new foods.
Alex Reid
Government Partner: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission
Alex is a web designer and developer who enjoys making people’s lives easier, using technology.
For the past 10 years, Alex has been taking on projects big and small, working with agencies such as McCann Worldwide, Carter Digital and The Word Collective, and pushing pixels for clients ranging from Maybelline to the Australian Government and everything in between.
In his spare time, you can find him playing party music for party people.
Michael Lai
Government Partner: Department of Housing and Public Works (QLD)
Kate Currie
Government Partner: Department of Housing and Public Works (QLD)
Kate is a frontend web developer and entrepreneur. Her background is in Computer Science with a dash of Psychology. She’s passionate about usability and believes web applications should be intuitive to use and easy to understand. They should also look awesome.
Kate loves seeing her work have a positive impact on those who use it. She also loves coding, attempting latte art and hanging out with her amazing family. In her spare time you’ll find Kate trying to persuade her kids that zucchini muffins are a good idea.
Wilson Mok
Government Partner: Department of Housing and Public Works (QLD)
Wilson is an engineer who is motivated by the technologies that shape our daily lives and digital preservation.
Wilson completed his Bachelor of Computer Systems and Network Engineering at RMIT, and has worked within the private and public sectors. He has experience in mechatronics and coding and finds himself most at home with tinkering with embedded systems.
Associates
Claramae Gonsalves
Government Partner: Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation
Christian Arévalo
Government Partner: Victoria Legal Aid
Christian is a software engineer graduate of computer science from Politécnico Grancolombiano. He is passionate about web development technologies.He has experience working with startups and commercial projects in Colombia and Australia, also he has been part of teams focused on improving e-commerce and business applications.
Christian also loves playing and watching soccer, video games and hanging out with his friends.
Ezekiel Kigbo
Government Partner: Neighbourhood Justice Centre
Fellowship Alumni
Lara Stephenson
2018 Fellow
Jonathan Castillo Bello
2018 Fellow
Wilson Mok
2018 Fellow
Georgina Lewis
2018 Fellow
Elise Chant
2018 Fellow
Merrin MacLeod
2018 Fellow
Krishna Ali
2018 Fellow
Devy Sihaloho
2017 Fellow
Michael Batley
2017 Fellow
Teresa Villanueva
2017 Fellow
Rachelle Salvadora
2017 Fellow
Samantha Wijesinha
2017 Fellow
Kerrie Batrouney
2017 Fellow
Louise Krstic
2017 Fellow
Samara Dionne
2017 Fellow
Kristen Hardy
2017 Fellow
Georgia Hansford
2017 Fellow
Tatiana Lenz
2017 Fellow
Rikke Winther-Sørensen
2017 Fellow
Michael Calle
2017 Fellow
Ben Minerds
2016 Fellow
Ken Mok
2016 Fellow
Johan Codinha
2016 Fellow
Arnham Markac
2016 Fellow
Irina Anastasiu
2016 Fellow
Becca Blazak
2016 Fellow
Diana Ramirez
2016 Fellow
Veronica Farias
2016 Fellow
Elmer Ibayan
2016 Fellow
Kasra Majbouri
2016 Fellow
Jesse Morabito
2015 Fellow
Giselle Sperber
2015 Fellow
Rosetta Mills
2015 Fellow
Ruth Pearson
2015 Fellow
Alisha Ryans-Taylor
2015 Fellow
Peter Welte
2015 Fellow
Steve Bennett
2015 Fellow
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Working towards a government that is built by and made for everyone.
© 2019 Code for Aus Pty Ltd
Dan Groch is a technology entrepreneur who founded Hero Boyfriend and co-founded Code for Australia and Fig & Bloom. Dan helps corporations and governments achieve more with less by leveraging open data, human capability and behavioural economics. In his spare time, he likes baking scones.