About Amplify
The what, where and why
Amplify draws the biggest brains-trust of thinkers, business innovators and thought leaders from all over the world to Australia for one week of exploring the edge of business innovation and ideas.
The festival takes place in Sydney but its digital reach brings in an Australia-wide and International audience.
Since its origins in 2005 as a learning experiment for AMP, one of Australia's longest standing companies and best known financial services brands, Amplify has contemplated the impact of technology on our lives and the future of financial services through different themes. This year the theme is "Everything connects".
AMP's 3,500 employees, as well as AMP's network of financial planners, partners, clients and members of the public (tickets can be purchased via Ticketek) all have the opportunity to experience this immersive learning experience.
The 2011 theme: Everything Connects
The theme is explored in greater detail here.
The design approach
Amplify is an investment by AMP in its people, partners and customers. The programme is designed to engage heart and mind, logic and emotion, theory and practice, serious learning and fun.
- The Speaker Stream offers 45-minute keynote presentations followed by Q&A. Sessions can be followed on Twitter, in live blogs, and many have live audio streams.
- The one-day EXPO transforms AMP office common areas into a vibrant market of ideas and emerging technologies for participants to try out. Booths are presented by employee teams, partners, vendors, entrepreneurs and R&D institutions.
- Deep-dive workshops with specialists in selected areas of particular interest to our business.
- The Technology on Tap pub night offers after-hours infotainment as PhD researchers explain in 3 minutes open-mic style what they’re studying, how it will help make the world a better place and why we should care. Audience votes determine a cash prize to help fund ongoing research.
- Creativity Tapas offers hands-on learning workshops in a range of creative or performance-based arts, from photography to poetry, from storytelling to film production, from sculpting to improve theatre. The artefacts produced in these workshops all find a way back into the festival through a professionally curated exhibition.
Our Amplify Community Project - One Laptop Per Child
In our sophisticated urban society, we take access to information at the tips of our fingers for granted. But digital connectedness is not the reality for every Australian.
More than 400,000 children aged 4 to 15 living in outer-regional and remote Australia don’t have access to the educational miracle that computers and the internet offer. Their geographic isolation compounds the digital divide and robs these young Australians of the opportunities to fulfil their dreams.
In keeping with the theme of Amplify 11 and to help ”everyone connect” with opportunity, we chose One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) as an ideal cause to throw our weight and support behind.
This year IT@AMP employees and Amplify Festival together raised over $30,000 for the OLPC program to help provide every child in a classroom at the Acacia Hill school in Alice Springs with a specially designed educational laptop, training and support. The funds were raised by internal AMP fundraising drives and pledges from exhibitors at the Amplify EXPO. Plus we also donated 5% of all tickets sold to OLPC.
We also organised the world's first Smartphone Famine on May 17 2011, which raised more for OLPC. More info here!
Partners and sponsors
Amplify partners with a number of membership based organisations, the Government of NSW and a number of AMP's strategic business partners to create a stellar programme and reach a wider audience. We also offer sponsorship opportunities for brands who want to be associated with specific elements of the programme or the festival at large. If you are interested either as a partner on behalf of your members, or amplifying your brand via sponsorshop, please write to us at amplify@amp.com.au.
