Ampalavanapillai (Thas) Nirmalathas is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is also the Institute Director for the Networked Society Institute - an interdisciplinary research institute focusing on solutions to societal issues by harnessing the connectivity between people, places and things in an increasingly networked society. He co-founded the Melbourne Accelerator Program - Australia's first university based start up accelerator program in 2012 and was its inaugural director 2012-2015 and 2015-2017 as its academic director. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Fellow of the Engineers Australia.