Over the years, Pause Fest has hosted more than 1,200 speakers—including 200+ in 2020 alone. What truly sets us apart is the 40+ international speakers, mostly from Silicon Valley, we bring to Australia each year—a pull no other local tech event has matched. Google in San Francisco even ran an internal competition to decide who gets to come.

We’ve featured voices from Amazon, Canva, Netflix, Adobe, NASA, Pixar, Atlassian, IDEO, Airwallex, Adidas, BBC and more. Why? Because our stage isn’t just another conference stop—it’s a platform powered by purpose, driven by vision and backed by a grassroots community to fuel the next gen forward.

Pause Fest didn’t join Melbourne’s tech scene—it created it. Before meetups existed, before startups were part of the conversation, we brought creators and thinkers from shadows into the public arena—launching at FedSquare to place future thinking in the cultural spotlight.

Years before government bodies emerged, Pause Fest was already building the foundations of Victoria’s innovation economy. That early leadership delivered real results with $170M+ in social and economic impact, $235M in global media reach each year and a lasting role in defining Melbourne as a global city of innovation.