Master of Ceremonies
Greg Alchin
Principal Accessibility Specialist – Service NSW
Greg Alchin is the Principal Accessibility Specialist at the Department of Customer Service NSW (DCS). As an expert and passionate advocate for people with disability, he drives agency culture and change capacity in inclusivity and design.
Greg has over 30 years’ experience working across education, community, commercial and government organisations and on initiatives that promote inclusion. Greg is authentically passionate about accessibility rights and his expertise has been sought by bodies such as the Australian Human Rights Commission, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the United Nations World Food Program.
Greg’s lived experience with a disability will ignite his passion and commitment to shine through in his role as MC for Let’s Rock NSW.
Our speakers
Keynote speaker – Hannah Gadsby
Comedian, Writer, Art Person
Hannah Gadsby has been a comedian for more than a decade, but it was 2018 when the world took notice when their ground breaking comedy special launched on Netflix and stopped the comedy world in its tracks.
Nanette earned Hannah an Emmy, a Peabody, an Australian Academy Award, and the Most Outstanding Show awards at both the Melbourne Comedy Festival and Edinburgh Fringe. Since then, Hannah did two more solo stand-up comedy shows which toured the world – selling out houses across the USA, Australia and Europe, including the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Festival Hall, the Kennedy Centre, the London Palladium and the Opera House at BAM.
Hannah’s second Netflix special, Douglas launched in 2020, and their third, Something Special landed on Netflix May 2023. Douglas was nominated for an Emmy and won an Australian Academy Award as did Something Special.
In 2022, they also managed to publish their New York Times Best Selling memoir, Ten Steps To Nanette in more than ten languages, chatted with the likes of Colbert and Fallon and hosted a gala at the Montreal Just For Laughs comedy festival.
Hannah also co-curated an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, taking part in the global celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso's death featuring works from the Musée Picasso in Paris alongside those from the Brooklyn Museum's Feminist Art Collection.
Hannah's fourth special with Netflix was recorded in 2023 and launched in 2024, recorded in London, the Gender Agenda bought together gender queer comedians from around the world.
Guest speaker – Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM
Doctor, Lawyer, Disability Advocate, Researcher
Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland and the second person to graduate medical school with quadriplegia in Australia. Dinesh is a doctor, lawyer, disability advocate, and researcher.
Halfway through medical school, he was involved in a motor vehicle accident that caused a cervical spinal cord injury.
As a result of his injury and experiences, Dinesh has been an advocate for inclusion. He is a founding member of Doctors with Disabilities Australia.
Dinesh works in the emergency department at the Gold Coast University Hospital. He has completed an Advanced Clerkship in Radiology at the Harvard University and is a senior lecturer at the Griffith University and adjunct research fellow at the Menzies Health Institute of Queensland. He is a research fellow at the Jamieson Trauma Institute. Dinesh is a researcher in spinal cord injury. He is a doctor for the Gold Coast Titans physical disability rugby team. Dinesh is a senior advisor to the Disability Royal Commission. He is an ambassador to the Human Rights Commission’s Includeability program. He was a 2021 International Day of People with Disability ambassador.
Dinesh was the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service’s Junior Doctor of the Year in 2018. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2019. He was the third Australian to be awarded a Henry Viscardi Achievement Award. He was the 2021 Griffith University Young Alumnus of the Year.
He is the author of Stronger, how losing everything set me free, published in 2022.
Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM is the 2021 Queensland Australian of the Year.
In 2023, Dinesh joined the advisory board of healthylife where he uses his experience and skills to provide expert health information and advocate for the health of Australians and became a John Monash Scholar.
Facilitator – Sarah Rose
Paralympian, Author, Disability Advocate, Podcaster, NSW Government Employee
Sarah Rose is a three-time Paralympic medal-winning swimmer who has proudly represented Australia at the Paralympic Games, World Championships, and World Cups. Beyond the pool, she’s a passionate disability advocate, public speaker, writer, and host of A Very Rosie Podcast.
Sarah is also a proud mum of two—Willow and Freddie—and is driven by the desire to create a world where people with disability, like their mum, are seen, celebrated, and included in everyday Australian life and media.
Her children’s book, ABC Disability, is a big-hearted A to Z guide to disability—full of letters, learnings and laughs from a disabled person’s perspective. The book features bold, colourful illustrations by award-winning artist Beck Feiner, and includes the Auslan sign for each letter of the alphabet.
Representation is at the heart of Sarah’s work. She is a strong advocate for children with disability to be seen in books, television, movies, and advertising—highlighting the need for media to reflect the one-in-five Australians who live with disability.
Professionally, Sarah works in the People team at the Department of Communities and Justice, where she leads the coordination of employee recognition programs that celebrate the diverse contributions of staff across the department.
When she’s not sharing her story, Sarah enjoys spending time with her family and friends in the beachside suburb of Newport on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
Follow Sarah on Instagram for more tips on disability awareness .