Post-Grad Degrees, Privilege & Hiring | The Loop Back

George Meredith leads Security Technical Operations for RUSH, overseeing system quality and infrastructure security. With a Computer Systems Technology degree, Postgraduate Diploma in IT, and a PhD in Cybersecurity, George brings 15+ years of technical expertise to address privacy and security considerations essential to responsible AI deployment in manufacturing environments. He's also the Unit Training Manager for the Hawke's Bay Coastguard.

Prof. Dr. Aini Suzana Ariffin is a Malaysian academic, policymaker, and global advocate for responsible artificial intelligence. Her core expertise includes AI policy and strategy development, AI governance and ethics, and AI risk and impact assessment. She led the development of Malaysia’s National Artificial Intelligence Roadmap and contributed to key national frameworks such as the AI Governance and Ethics Guidelines and the AI Risk and Impact Assessment Framework, aligning with global benchmarks including UNESCO’s ethical AI principles and IEEE standards. Suzana currently serves as a Fellow Expert at the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Chair of the UNESCO STEPAN Network for Asia and the Pacific.

Recorded live at the Aotearoa AI Summit 2026 in Wellington, this episode brings together six voices spanning the boardroom to the hackathon floor, and ultimately considering when does the human in the loop matter most?

Angie Judge is the Chief Data & Intelligence Officer at accesso, where she leads the vision and strategy for accesso Intelligence helping organisations across the experience economy turn data into confident decisions through predictive analytics and AI. She joined accesso following its 2026 acquisition of Dexibit, the company she founded in 2016 and grew into the leading data and AI platform purpose-built for visitor attractions, used by some of the world's most iconic venues.

Perrin Rowland is Chief Product & Experience Officer at academyEX. Before that she built and matured the design function at Westpac New Zealand — including their Customer Care Lab — and led user experience and CX maturity at Spark through a full agile transformation. She's taught information architecture and UX at New York University, worked with the Nielsen Norman Group, and describes herself, wonderfully, as a designer of journeys and a maker of maps.