Smart Trade Networks
Smart Trade Networks
WARWICK POWELL is Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of Technology and QUT Design Lab
WARWICK POWELL
Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of Technology
QUT Design Lab
Profile
Warwick Powell is a seasoned executive and research innovator and leader, with
strong academic and industry experience. He is a leader in creative integration
of cutting edge research, thinking and technologies in diverse industry sectors
underpinned by a background in applied statistics and the disciplines of
economics and social sciences. He has a particular interest in regional social-
economic systems and their integration into the dynamics of global investment
and trade. This interest cuts across technical areas such as blockchain systems,
Fintech innovation, supply chain finance, information theory, game theory,
behaviour economics, cryptography and their intersection with supply chains
and legal regulations. His industry experiences cut across agribusiness, food
production, financial services and financial technologies, ICT, travel and tourism,
retail and residential property development, energy and natural resources as well
as funds management and cross-border structured finance solutions. His
experience and network traverses academia and industry particularly in Asia,
Africa, South America and Europe. He has advised State Premiers, Prime
Ministers and Government Ministers.
Professional Interests
My professional interests are focused on my role as chair of a the Smart Trade
Networks group of companies, which are focused on the development of
services that enable the implementation of digital technologies in global supply
chain environments. The companies focus on the intersection of the ‘real world’
with digital hardware systems such as IOT sensors and smart tech-solutions
with software applications including blockchain platforms, big data analytics and
AI.
Research and Academic Interests
My research interests are eclectic and polymathic, but are anchored by a series
of intertwined areas of concern. These relate to socio-economic systems and
the role of digitalisation and information in them, political economy in its
broadest sense and foundational philosophical considerations about the nature
of knowledge and human experience. These build on my ongoing interests in
‘Asia in the world’, particularly insofar as these issues intersect with the
development of China’s political economy. These interests have played out in
work on urban development, innovation and creativity in the context of regional
economic development, social impacts of system or ecosystem changes, global
political economy and more recently with a sustained body of research and
analysis in the area of supply chain systems and the application of distributed
ledger technologies (including blockchains) in them.
