Keynote Speaker

Bestselling author of 13 books and award-winning disability and human rights advocate Tara Moss has over 20 years of experience in the public eye, speaking at hundreds of universities, schools, writers’ festivals, town halls, community and corporate events and more. She has given an address at the National Press Club and in Australian Parliament, and has interviewed the iconic Gloria Steinem, Naomi Klein, Alison Bechdel, Amanda Palmer, Lynda La Plante, Michael Connelly and Rosie Batty, among others, and shared the stage as a panelist with Germaine Greer, Kathy Lette, Roxane Gay and more. Tara is an outspoken advocate for the rights of women, children and people with disabilities. She has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2007 and as of 2013 is UNICEF Australia’s National Ambassador for Child Survival, and has visited Australian hospitals, maternity wards and schools as well as Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon in her UNICEF role. In 2015 she briefed parliamentarians in Australia on the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

In 2015 she received an Edna Ryan Award for her significant contribution to feminist debate, speaking out for women and children and inspiring others to challenge the status quo, and in 2017 was named a one of the Global Top 50 Diversity Figures in Public Life. As a disabled woman and ambulatory wheelchair user diagnosed with CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) after an injury in 2016, she works to dismantle stigmas around disability and mobility aid use through her writing and at her page Tara and Wolfie, and in 2021 was named as a ‘Global Change Maker in Disability and Chronic Pain by Conscious Being Magazine, UK. (For more accolades and awards, see below.)