Justin Baird

With his expertise on digital tech, media and marketing, Justin Baird is a leading innovator and technology futurist with a keen understanding of the contemporary and future digital landscape. 

Justin has over fifteen years of leadership experience across a range of high-tech fields, including in research and development engineering, signal processing, embedded systems development, high-speed digital networks, large scale entertainment systems, and interactive multimedia installation technologies. As a leading innovator, he also holds two U.S. patents and has written a number of technical papers.

Originally from the US, Justin was an Innovationist at Google. He played a crucial role in the launch of several Google products, such as local YouTube portals across the Asia Pacific region, Google Maps, Google Wave, as well as the first Android mobile devices in the region.

He was also heavily involved in organising key leadership events like bringing Google Creative Sandbox to Australia. He co-created DNA to inspire digital thought leadership across Australia and New Zealand, and developed Digital Bytes to become Google’s executive client engagement strategy across the Asia Pacific region.

Shortly after, Justin became a founding partner of Jumptank and the Group Innovation Director at Aegis. With his focus on developing intellectual property for consumer and enterprise applications, he consults with clients and partners to drive change and add value.

Justin also contributes his expertise to a range of community organisations. As a member of the 2013 CSCLeaders, he helps tackle contemporary challenges of society to build global relationships needed by future leaders. 

He is also on the advisory board of Underwater Earth. Thanks to his patent on underwater panoramic imagery, their SeaView Survey scientific expedition is the first comprehensive study to document and reveal the composition and health of coral reefs on the Great Barrier Reef across an unprecedented depth range (0-100m). 

In his spare time, Justin is passionate about driving change through various philanthropic efforts. In 2008, he led the global launch of Earth Connect, a social platform for Earth Hour. In 2009, he worked closely with the United Nations to create the Show Your Vote platform, an online advocacy tool for the COP15 Copenhagen Climate Summit that was officially sanctioned and supported by the UNFCCC. The open-source platform was also used in various online advocacy initiatives, including Earth Hour 2010. He continues to support local creative and digital industries through sponsorship and lecturing engagements at Award School.

In recognition of his leading expertise in media technologies, Justin was listed in AdNews’ "40 under 40" award in 2010.

As a musician himself, Justin has a strong passion for digital audio, musical computing, live sound and recording. He holds a dual degree in Electrical Engineering and Music from the University of Miami, where he specialises in the intersection between technology and the creative arts. He was a product management director at Dolby Laboratories Inc. and a research and design engineer at Meyer Sound Laboratories in the fields of electroacoustics and hardware design. He has also worked alongside leading artists, including Elton John and Barbra Streisand, to improve the technology and production of live performance.