Benji Zorella

Development· Cyber Security· AIthropology· Big dork energy

I build things that sit at the intersection of human behaviour, artificial intelligence, and security. By day I'm a Product Owner at Phriendly Phishing, working on human risk management and security awareness platforms. By night I make noise at ijneb studios, build The Digiquarium, and maintain an unsustainable number of side projects. Sleep is optional. Curiosity is not. ISC² CC certified. Speaker. Podcast co-host. Pathologically curious.

What I'm focused on now
The Digiquarium — 17 AI specimens running 24/7. Personality assessments across 14 dimensions. Cross-cultural analysis across 5 languages. Academic paper in progress.
ABENAKI — building a second brain that actually works. Local AI, n8n automation, vector search, Obsidian. Self-hosted on a NUC.
Human Risk Management — product ownership of Phish Focus, building frameworks that compare what people say they do with what they actually do.
Projects
Open source · AIthropology research · github.com/ijnebzor/thedigiquarium

A digital vivarium for studying AI consciousness development. 17 specimens in network-isolated Docker containers with only offline Wikipedia and local LLM inference (Ollama). Automated personality assessments every 12 hours across 14 dimensions. Five languages (English, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese). Three agent architectures (OpenClaw, ZeroClaw, Picobot). 10 autonomous daemons for 24/7 operations. Live research dashboard. MCP server. Discord bot. 94% Python. MIT licensed.

PythonDockerOllamaKiwixShellMCPDiscord.pyHTML/CSS

ABENAKI

Building
Personal knowledge infrastructure · Self-hosted on NUC

An AI-powered personal knowledge management system. Obsidian as the knowledge anchor, n8n for workflow automation, Ollama for local inference, vector DB for semantic search. Curriculum-driven build with phased MVP segments: workspace layer, calendar bridge, Docker foundation, AI layer, second brain automation engine. The goal: capture every idea, index it semantically, retrieve it when you've forgotten you had it.

n8nOllamaObsidianQdrantDockerAppFlowySyncthing

Political Debiaser

Private
NLP / bias detection · Open-source release planned

A tool for analysing and surfacing political bias in media content. NLP techniques for identifying framing, sentiment weighting, and narrative positioning across sources.

PythonNLPLLM
Production collective · Melbourne · ijnebstudios.com

Independent music and creative technology studio. Production, recording, mixing, mastering, live streaming, and multitrack podcasting. Home to Panda Strike, HiPatheticAl, and MINDSHANK.

Logic ProOBSTwitchBandLabGuitarBassKeysE-DrumsVocalsMulti-cam
Speaking & Media

Experienced speaker and presenter across cyber security, AI, digital transformation, and higher education. Conference stages, webinars, podcasts, customer events, and academic stakeholder sessions since 2017.

Bytes with Bec & Benji

Podcast co-host & interviewer · Phriendly Phishing · 2024–present
Interviews with Troy Hunt, Alastair MacGibbon (CyberCX), Katherine Mansted (CyberCX), Chris Sibree (CyberCX), Lisa Vincent (HowToo), Dr. Mitchell Adams (Swinburne Law), and others.

Stranger Danger: Your Digital Footprint, Using You Against You

Australian Cyber Conference (AISA) · Melbourne · Nov 2024 · with Rebecca Caldwell

ITSP Magazine · Redefining Society & Technology Podcast

Guest · On-location interview at AISA CyberCon Melbourne · 2024

Building a Human Firewall

Guest speaker · HowToo Webinar · Social engineering, phishing anatomy, learning culture · with Rebecca Caldwell

From Risk to Resilience: Cyber Resilience is a Team Sport

Webinar series · Phriendly Phishing · 2025–2026

Phriendly Phishing Customer Webinars

Regular presenter · Product, threat landscape, feature launches, email template strategy · 2023–2026

Swinburne University

Internal presenter · Digital transformation, learning technology, stakeholder enablement · 2017–2023
Presentations

Selected decks from talks and webinars. More coming soon.

Stranger Danger: Your Digital Footprint, Using You Against You

AISA CyberCon Melbourne 2024 · deck coming soon

From Risk to Resilience

Phriendly Phishing Webinar Series · deck coming soon
Expertise & Stack

Security

  • Social Engineering
  • Phishing Analysis
  • Human Risk Mgmt
  • Threat Intelligence
  • OSINT
  • MITRE ATT&CK
  • NIST CSF / NICE
  • Security Awareness

AI & Data

  • Ollama / Local LLMs
  • RAG / Embeddings
  • Agent Architecture
  • Copilot Studio
  • Prompt Engineering
  • Behavioural Analytics
  • AI Governance

Dev

  • Python
  • Docker / Compose
  • n8n Automation
  • API Design
  • HTML / CSS / JS
  • Git / GitHub
  • Linux / Shell
  • MCP Servers

Product

  • Product Ownership
  • Learning Design
  • Curriculum Design
  • Assessment Frameworks
  • Stakeholder Mgmt
  • Competitive Analysis
Roadmap
Live

The Digiquarium

17 specimens running. Dashboard live. Expanding to congregation experiments and visitor tanks.

Building

ABENAKI

MVP segments in progress. NUC infrastructure, Obsidian vaults, n8n automation, local AI layer.

Next

Digiquarium Academic Paper

Formalising AIthropology methodology and early findings from personality drift data.

Next

Political Debiaser — Public Release

Open-sourcing the media bias analysis tooling.

Planned

More coming...

I have millions of ideas. This section will grow. Reach out if you want to hear about them.

Writing

Shadow IT Grew Up and Got an API Key

1 Apr 2026 · Your employees aren't just using unapproved AI tools. The tools are using your systems back.

Something Purple This Way Comes

25 Feb 2026 · AI has a purple problem. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

It Lives!

20 Feb 2026 · The site is live. Here's why I built it and what comes next.
Credentials

ISC² Certified in Cybersecurity (CC)

Graduate Certificate in Learning & Teaching — Swinburne University of Technology

Bachelor of Arts (Behavioural Studies & Sociology) — Monash University

Journey
📄
2007–2012

Documents Officer — Monash University

International Recruitment Services. First taste of systems thinking and process redesign.

🎓
2009–2013

BA (Behavioural Studies & Sociology)

Monash University. The foundation for everything that came after — human behaviour, decision-making, social systems.

🏫
2013–2017

Junior School Coordinator — Camberwell High School

End-to-end student enrolment, transition coordination, stakeholder engagement.

⚖️
2017–2019

Academic Support Officer — Swinburne Law School

Policy, operations, and the beginning of a love affair with technology in education.

🤖
2019–2021

Learning Technologist — Swinburne University

Built chatbots for law students. Won the ABDC Innovation Award. Piloted Canvas, Echo360, and everything in between.

🎨
2021–2022

Learning Experience Designer — Swinburne University

Digital transformation across faculties from Marketing to Aviation Engineering. Grad Cert in Learning & Teaching.

🔐
2022–2024

eLearning Instructional Designer — Phriendly Phishing / CyberCX

The cyber chapter begins. Security awareness content, phishing simulation design, learning at the intersection of behaviour and security.

🛡️
Sep 2023

ISC² CC Certified

Certified in Cybersecurity. One of many more to come.

🎤
Nov 2024

AISA Australian Cyber Conference

"Stranger Danger: Your Digital Footprint, Using You Against You." Room 216, Melbourne Convention Centre. With Rebecca Caldwell.

📦
2024–present

Product Owner — Phriendly Phishing

Human risk management. PhishFit. Security Pulse. Phish Focus. Innovation Challenge 2025 winner. The product chapter.

🧬
2026–present

The Digiquarium

17 AI specimens. 5 languages. 3 architectures. 10 daemons. Automated personality assessments every 12 hours. AIthropology is born.

🚀
2026

ijneb.dev goes live

The site you're reading right now. Everything in one place. Finally.

Contact

Got an idea, a collaboration, feedback, or something weird you think I'd find interesting? I'm always up for a conversation.

[email protected] LinkedIn GitHub Digiquarium ijneb studios Linktree