Dale Spender works in the knowledge economy providing policy and implementation advice across the public and private sector.

As a content creator – who, in another life, wrote/edited more than thirty books, numerous academic journal articles and a range of newspaper columns as well as TV presentations etc – she now explores the opportunities of the online medium. She is particularly interested in the commercialisation of creativity, and in the use of Intellectual Property (IP) in a digital context.

 One of her current projects is entitled REMBRANDTS IN THE ATTIC, which is a suite of IP products and services, which provide course materials, case studies, compliance information on the use of IP in education and other sectors. These units help educational institutions (and other bodies) identify their IP, with a view to commercialisation, and provide a basis for valuing and treating IP as a financial asset.

As a professional educator (and adjunct professor at the University of Queensland) she has focussed on the need to integrate the new technologies into teaching, learning (and earning) and has developed a range of online professional products to help meet the challenge of changing the professional competencies of teachers.

 She is at present an advisor to Microsoft on their Partners in Learning philanthropic project designed to enhance the ability of teachers to teach with the new technologies. She has also co-authored the report on online education for the Commonwealth Government, and the report, ‘Embracing e-learning in Australian schools’ which was sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank.

 A director of the Copyright Agency Ltd and the past chair, she has played a crucial role in converting a traditional business (the collection of fees for photocopying) into a new economy business – an internationally successful digital rights management enterprise.

Dale Spender is on the advisory board for the Department of Innovation and Information Economy, and has been on the management committee of the Ideas at the Powerhouse Festival. She is on the board of Enabling Queensland, and is a past member of the committee of management of the Australian Society of Authors, and of AIMIA (Australian Interactive Media and Internet Association). She is the principal director of digital style pty ltd. She has given advice to governments, corporations and educational institutions. (Her consultancies include AOL, Commonwealth Bank, BBC, ABC, St George Bank, Microsoft, State Library of Qld etc.)

 She is an internationally renowned public speaker who has given more than 350 keynote addresses and in April 2003 was a speaker and panellist at the Networked World: Information Technology and Globalisation Symposium at Santa Clara, USA. She has taught in many of the prestigious universities in the UK, Europe, North America – including University of London, Open University, MIT, University of California at Berkeley – and has been a Fellow of the University of London and of the University of Illinois.)

 She is also on the board of the Second Chance Program which raises money for homeless women.