Its hard to think of two more disparate worlds than sculpture and the taxi industry but Hamish Petrie straddles both.

After selling his ticket website Moshtix to News Limited, (publisher of The Australian), he kicked back to do some art and sold a work in the Sculptures by the Sea exhibition.

These days he’s back in disruptive apps, taking on the handful of interests which control the taxi industry with his taxi-booking application ingogo.

It features a customised Android device that can be used by approved drivers only, and Petrie has rallied a very impressive set of investors.

Doron Ben-Meir has done the lot in the entrepreneur game, including venture-capital partner, company founder, investor, investment manager and adviser.

These days he is doing his bit for the country’s future wealth, as chief executive  of the federal government's startup grants body Commercialisation Australia, which handed out about $50 million in grants last year.

The Commercialisation Australia case managers are there to help sort out the difference between smart and dumb money and ideas and give the government more bang for its buck.

Ben- Meir’s vast experience should see Australia produce more technology winners in the years ahead.

The newly elected Australian Computer Society president comes to the office with some major challenges, such as keeping the professional technology body relevant to the new world of rapid mobile app development, cloud computing and globally arbitraged technology employment as well as boosting membership.

Tate is confident of raising ACS numbers this year, in the wake of the society offering a new junior credential for computer professionals at the start of their careers.

As the big social networking sites like Facebook reach ever deeper into our daily lives so does the workload of the Federal Privacy Commissioner increase. As well as policing privacy on social networks, Privacy Commissioner Tim Pilgrim also has a say in policy development around issues such as customer data being stored offshore through increased use of cloud computing.

The trouble is, while the Privacy Commissioner can investigate breaches, the office has no big stick to wave at offenders – it has little or no enforcement power. This is an area ripe for legislative change in the social networking age.

The ACCC chairman has major pull over telecommunications matters and former holders of the office such as Graeme Samuel have been fierce upholders of maintaining a competitive telco environment.

With the NBN roll out promising to speed up once the current crop of wholesale agreements between Telstra and NBN Co get signed off and the structural separation of Telstra yet to really play out, the role of the country’s most visible corporate regulator is likely to become even more demanding.

Freshly installed ACCC chairman Rod Sims has a challenging road ahead, especially in the shadow of potential change of government and the subsequent termination of the NBN project.