Industry AI Workshop Day
Exec masterclasses for industry practitioners, technical leaders, executives, operations teams, and researchers for building, adopting and using AI responsibly.
Join IRAI 2026 for a practical, hands-on workshop day designed for industry practitioners, technical leaders, executives, operations teams, researchers and policy stakeholders who want to adopt AI responsibly in real workplace settings.
The day covers applied prompting, AI-assisted prototyping, workplace agents, local AI infrastructure, and responsible AI policy design. You can attend the full day or focus on the sessions most relevant to your work.
Agenda - Wednesday 2 September 2026
| Time | Session | Presenter | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 am – 12:00 pm | AI Skills: Prompting and Vibe Coding for Industry Practice | 
Nishan MillsSenior AI ArchitectNishan Mills is a senior AI architect, data scientist, educator and entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience addressing technology challenges across multinational, multisector digital environments including healthcare, emergency services, transportation and sustainable energy management. He is the technology lead of the award-winning La Trobe Energy Analytics Platform (LEAP), and his work spans applied AI, machine learning and building practical AI capability in industry settings. | A practical session on turning workplace problems into useful AI workflows, from better prompting to rapid AI-assisted prototyping. Participants learn reusable prompt patterns, how to brief AI coding tools, and how to move from idea to a lightweight internal tool while managing reliability, privacy and review. |
| 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm | Lunch | Informal networking lunch for participants, speakers and organisers. | |
| 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm | Agent Skills: Building and Adopting AI Agents for Workplace Productivity | 
Harsha MoraliyageSenior AI ArchitectHarsha Moraliyage is a senior AI architect and AI research scientist whose work spans Responsible AI, natural language processing, deep learning, cybersecurity and energy analytics, including generative AI agents for hyper-automation. He co-designed a university-wide AI literacy module giving coursework and research students core competence in AI, and has published widely on responsible AI principles and practice. | What AI agents are, where they are useful, and how organisations can adopt them without over-automating critical decisions. Participants map real workplace use cases such as document handling, research, reporting, customer operations and internal knowledge workflows. |
| 3:00 pm – 3:30 pm | Afternoon break | Tea, coffee and networking. | |
| 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm — Track A | Sovereign AI: Hosting and Running Local Models | 
Prabod RathnayakaCo-founder & CTO, Base ComputePrabod Rathnayaka is co-founder and CTO of Base Compute, where he works on local AI, helping organisations run models on infrastructure they control. A senior machine learning engineer and AI researcher with 6+ years of experience across natural language processing, voice AI and multimodal learning, he was previously an AI research scientist at Maincode, the Melbourne AI lab building Matilda, an Australian-built large language model, and has held roles at Replica Studios and John Snow Labs. | A practical introduction to why local AI matters and how organisations can run models on infrastructure they control: open models, hardware choices, Ollama, LM Studio, model serving, privacy trade-offs, cost considerations, and when local AI is (and is not) the right choice. |
| 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm — Track B | AI Policy and Risks: How to Write an AI Policy for Your Organisation | 
Zafar IssadeenCTO · AI & Construction Technology ConsultantZafar Issadeen is an AI and construction technology consultant who advises organisations on adopting AI and digital tools responsibly across construction and infrastructure. He brings deep construction-tech experience — over 2,000 projects delivered across 12 years — including senior technology leadership at Victoria’s Level Crossing Removal Project and the delivery of collaboration platforms for the $10.9B Metro Tunnel, with earlier roles in project delivery at InEight and ICT advisory at KPMG covering security, privacy and continuity. He is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). | A parallel governance-focused session for leaders, managers and teams responsible for safe AI adoption: acceptable use, data handling, approval processes, human oversight, tool governance, risk classification and staff training. |
Info
The afternoon runs as two parallel tracks — choose Track A or Track B. The final schedule and room allocation will be confirmed closer to the conference.
Register
Registration is open, and workshop attendance is included with conference registration — there is no separate workshop fee.
To attend the Industry AI Workshop Day, register on the IRAI 2026 registration page and select Regular Delegate. Registration includes attendance to the IRAI 2026 conference sessions.