DDD Perth 2026 Agenda
River Room 1 (Lv 3)
River Room 2 (Lv 3)
River Room 3 (Lv 3)
Cygnet room (Lv 2)
Black Swan (Lv 2)
8:00 am - 8:50 am
Registration
8:50 am - 9:30 am
Welcome and Housekeeping
9:30 am - 10:15 am
10:15 am - 10:45 am
Morning Tea
10:45 am - 11:30 am
10:45 am - 11:30 am
River Room 1 (Lv 3)
George Coldham
10:45 am - 11:30 am
River Room 2 (Lv 3)
Eunice Sari
10:45 am - 11:30 am
River Room 3 (Lv 3)
Flic Manning
10:45 am - 11:30 am
Cygnet room (Lv 2)
Ashley Aitken
10:45 am - 11:30 am
Black Swan (Lv 2)
Tanya Hallett
11:30 am - 11:40 am
Changeover
11:40 am - 12:25 pm
11:40 am - 12:25 pm
River Room 3 (Lv 3)
Dunja Lewis
11:40 am - 12:25 pm
Black Swan (Lv 2)
Amanda Tolfo Porto
12:25 pm - 1:25 pm
Lunch
1:25 pm - 1:45 pm
1:25 pm - 1:45 pm
Black Swan (Lv 2)
Alisa Blakeney
1:45 pm - 1:55 pm
Changeover
1:55 pm - 2:40 pm
1:55 pm - 2:40 pm
River Room 3 (Lv 3)
Kai Striega
1:55 pm - 2:40 pm
Cygnet room (Lv 2)
Sierra McDowell
2:40 pm - 2:50 pm
Changeover
2:50 pm - 3:35 pm
2:50 pm - 3:35 pm
River Room 1 (Lv 3)
Amanda Pitcher
2:50 pm - 3:35 pm
River Room 2 (Lv 3)
Cheryl Watts, Dale Field
2:50 pm - 3:35 pm
River Room 3 (Lv 3)
Trent Cain
2:50 pm - 3:10 pm
Black Swan (Lv 2)
icetana AI
3:35 pm - 4:00 pm
Afternoon Tea
4:00 pm - 4:45 pm
4:45 pm
Wrap Up and Prize Draw
I Didn’t Need to Work Harder — I Needed Better Systems
🕓 10:45 am - 11:30 am📍 River Room 3 (Lv 3)
I Didn’t Need to Work Harder — I Needed Better Systems
Tech culture loves the idea that success comes from discipline, hustle, and pushing through. But as a chronically ill and disabled entrepreneur, “working harder” was never a sustainable option for me.
Instead, I had to build systems that worked with human limits rather than against them.
In this talk, I’ll explore how chronic illness forced me to rethink productivity, leadership, communication, planning, and business operations — and why the software industry desperately needs the same shift.
This isn’t a talk about lowering standards or giving up ambition. It’s about building sustainable ways to work in an industry that often treats burnout as a badge of honour.
I’ll share practical lessons on protecting capacity, designing better workflows, communicating clearly, planning for fluctuating energy, and building businesses around reality instead of performance culture.
Because when people repeatedly struggle under a system, the answer isn’t always “try harder.”
Sometimes the system itself is the problem.
Speaker
Flic Manning
Speaker | Startup Consultant |Author | Radio Host | DEI Leader Utilising Lived Experience
Flic Manning is a Perth-based entrepreneur, speaker, author, and disability advocate focused on sustainable leadership, human-centred systems, and the future of work and startup ecosystems. Drawing on her lived experience with chronic illness and disability as well as her hands-on experience in Silicon Valley with leaders like Gary Vaynerchuk and Jason Calacanis; Flic has built businesses, coached founders, and worked across industries as diverse as wellbeing, Agrifood and iOT to name a few. Her work challenges hustle culture and explores how better systems create more sustainable success for individuals, teams, and organisations. She is a serial entrepreneur, author of Living Human, and an award-winning broadcaster whose work has been featured across podcasts, radio, media, and advocacy platforms. Flic is also an ambassador for organisations including Crohn’s & Colitis Australia and the Mental Health Foundation of Australia. Flic works to create greater representation for disabled entrepreneurs and to help industries and ecosystems rethink how we define productivity, leadership, and success.
Meet the Experts
Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
Table 4
10:30am – 11:25am
- Table 1
- Table 2
- Table 3
- Table 4
11:25am – 12:20pm
- Table 1
- Table 2
- Table 3
- Table 4
12:20pm – 1:15pm
- Table 1
- Table 2
- Table 3
- Table 4
1:15pm – 2:10pm
- Table 1
- Table 2
- Table 3
- Table 4
2:10pm – 3:05pm
- Table 1
- Table 2
- Table 3
- Table 4
3:05pm – 4:00pm
- Table 1
- Table 2
- Table 3
- Table 4
No bio provided.
2026 Sponsors
Gold
Room
Digital
Other Sponsors
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In Kind Sponsor
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