Professor Brett Sutton, the Guest of Honour at the 2024 Global Hall of Fame induction event in Australia, is a public health physician, biosecurity doyen and humanitarian. He is currently Director of Health and Biosecurity at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, with a focus on research and development around Australia’s health and biosecurity preparedness and responsiveness, digital health, and health and wellbeing.
Prof. Sutton gives a thought-provoking opening address, positioning us in the sixth mass extinction in history. He reflects on the many existential threats that face us, including climate change, unequal distribution of wealth and power, gross health inequities, chronic disease epidemics, and even deep fakes and AI. He laments that these problems are ‘systems problems’ and ‘wicked problems’ at that—both complex and complicated—and that even irrefutable scientific evidence or genuine interest and good intentions are not sufficient to overcome them.
He implores us to not let ‘perfection be the enemy of good’ and encourages us all to learn to move forward, even in the haze of uncertainty, towards the right answers. Together, with persistence, he emphasises that we could make both incremental and monumental changes for the sake of the planet and humankind.