Some conferences are worth attending for the content. Others are worth attending because the right people are in the room. Iron Ore | Open Pit Operators Conference 2026 is both, and this year, Sentient will be part of the conversation from the stage.
Sentient Founder and Managing Director Doug Bester has been confirmed as a keynote speaker at IOOP26, taking place 23–25 June at the Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre. His session, Building Digital Resiliency: How Mining Companies Can Adapt and Thrive in this Age of Disruptive Technologies, draws on 35+ years in technical operations and nearly two decades of building and deploying immersive technology with iron ore and energy operators across Australia.
What Doug Will Cover
Doug’s keynote will explore why that digital resilience in mining is not a technology problem. It is an organisational one. The companies navigating this era well are not necessarily the ones with the biggest technology budgets; they are the ones that are agile and can pivot to absorb and operationalise change, processes, and cultures to manage this.
That is the lens Doug will bring to his keynote. Expect practical thinking, not theory. What has actually worked in deploying VR training, digital twins, and immersive simulations in risk-averse operational environments? What does the next technology cycle demand from leaders, and why is the gap between pilot and production still where most deployments stall?
“Digital resilience is not about having the best technology. It is about being agile enough to adopt, adapt, and survive technology cycles.” — Doug Bester
The keynote draws directly from Sentient’s own deployment experience, including work with Rio Tinto, Fortescue and BHP. It will speak to the challenges iron ore and open-pit operators are navigating right now: procurement complexity, cyber risk, and the shift from isolated pilots to enterprise-scale rollouts.
Come See it at Stand 13
Alongside Doug’s keynote, Sentient will be exhibiting at Stand 13 across all three days of the conference.
For iron ore and open-pit operators looking to move beyond the pilot phase, our team will walk you through real deployments, answer technical questions, and explore what a fit for your operations could look like.
Doug will be available at the stand following his keynote; if you want to connect the ideas on stage to the tools behind them, that is the place to do it.
