Farewell from the ACS Victoria BEC Chair and End of the Year Wrap Up

What a year it’s been… full of huge surprises!

Personally, I’m finishing this year with mixed feelings. I’m sad that my second term as the Victorian BEC Chair is coming to an end. I will certainly miss the close interaction with the Victorian members; however, I will continue being part of the Victorian Branch Executive Committee for the next 2 years in the honorary role of Immediate Past Chair. On the other hand, I’m excited to welcome “fresh blood” to the VBEC and focus more on my business and family.

I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on some progress. Over the past 4 years Victorian membership has grown by 27%*. Overall, the organisation now has 48,200 active financial members.

There are, of course, some areas that require more attention, such as attraction and growth of the professional category of membership. We know that we must continue to improve in this area and continue to promote the relevance and importance of an ACS membership.

It’s worthwhile to mention some of the major monthly achievements of the branch and the whole of ACS:

January

• Re-launch of Vic CoderDojo, with our first Tech Explorer’s Holiday program sessions taking place.
• Hosted our first webinar of the 2020 calendar year on The Internet of Things that was attended by more than 50 guests.
• Kicked off the year with 9 student ambassadors representing various universities.

February

• Concluded the Summer Mentoring Program with Karen Gee, which was launched in November 2019, and involved 2 exclusive mentoring sessions, complimentary memberships to 8 outstanding students and graduates, and attendance to special events for the recipients (a special thanks to Karen for her mentoring and all the work she put into this program).
• Enterprise Architecture ACS Professional event (formally Member Forum) with over 100 people in attendance.
• Hosted a Women in Boards panel event, which saw high engagement and attracted a significant number of non-members, and a diverse audience.
• Hosted the first Tech & Employability Skills conference for 2020 with over 420 emerging professionals in attendance.
• Hosted a Strategy and Annual Plan session with members, and a Fellows and HLM lunch both attended by some of ACS Victoria’s long-standing members.
• Visited Ballarat to host a panel event for our regional members and a held our first Lightning hack event for the year in the Melbourne Innovation Hub on the topic of Robotics.

March

• Provided members with an R & D Masterclass for Tax incentive audit.
• Hosted a Big Data panel event attended by over 50 people.
• ACS launched a COVID-19 response page equipped with resources and tools for members. This included a Small Business Guide and Cyber security guides for SME’s.
• Released a 6-month temporary membership extension to current and incoming members who joined prior to 30 June.

April

• Released the ACS Career Platform, creating a recruitment solution for partners and job opportunities for members.
• Industry Insights Leaders Series brought to members as a new Virtual Series (to date, across the 13 events hosted, they were attended by over 6,000 individuals).
• Hosted the #flattenthecurvehack over the Easter 2020 period, encouraging members and IT professionals to get involved.
• Extension of the ACS staff Employee Assistance Program (EAP service) to allow ACS members to access a free counselling service until 31st December 2020.
• Launched the complimentary certification offer for members, having the opportunity to be independently validated and recognised by the ACS. The complimentary offer was open until 30 June 2020.
• ACS Tech & Employability Skills Conferences were re-launched as an online event to service our emerging professional members.
• ACS ICT Educators Virtual Development Series was released to support ICT educators. These sessions saw more than 1000 attendees across 8 sessions.

May

• Revamp of the eNewsletter communications with operational changes to the state newsletter sends, creating a dynamic – one-send communication piece.
• ACS Learning Accelerator was launched/released for members to upskill and reskill as the pandemic continued.

June/July

• Launch of the ACS Learning Accelerator on Demand, offering bite-sized courses for specialised tech skills, right at our members fingertips.
• Release of ACSPlus – giving ACS members access to over $1,500 (inc GST) of new benefits that will assist members to acquire related and new skills spanning the data value chain – from analytics, marketing, governance and privacy.
• ACS Tech & Digital Skills Survey released requesting members to advise on the skills they use to assist ACS in establishing standard skills profiles for Tech roles.

August

• Launch of ACS microCredentials.
• Launch of the branches Emerging and Deep Tech Webinar Series, which aim to provide a perspective exploring a topical issue with differing perspectives on deep technology and systems (data, cyber, AI, IoT, Blockchain).

September

• National launch of ACS Australia’s Digital Pulse 2020 report with John O’Mahony, Partner at Deloitte Access Economics.

October

• ACS surveyed Australian schools to gather data and form a benchmark for the state of Digital Technologies and IT education and teaching in the school sector.
• Update your member profile campaign launched for members, with an incentive to fill in their membership details in order to receive tailored membership content.

November

• Graduate engagement initiative released, encouraging new Victorian graduates to apply for an ACS membership as they transition into a career in tech.

December

• Launched the new Victorian branch recognition policy - recognising members who have been an ACS member for 50+ years (approx. 20) and other key membership milestones.
• Delivering 12 virtual membership sessions to students at Victorian universities across the calendar year.

A few months ago, we also had a meeting with the Victorian Government to talk about the industry and government funding. I was very pleased that they have listened and released a sound budget that invests highly in tech and innovation.

2021 will surely present us with many exciting opportunities, and I’m looking forward to witnessing membership growth and success of the Branch and members!

On behalf of ACS Victoria, I would like to extend our sincerest thank you to our Professional Partners, Committee Members and Volunteers, Victorian Branch Executive Committee and the Victorian Branch team for their ongoing hard work and dedication to the organisation.

The ACS office will be closed nationally from Wednesday 23 December 2020, reopening Monday 11 January 2021. Innovation Labs will remain open except for Friday 25 December and Thursday 31 December 2020.

Finally, I would like to thank you, our members, for your continued support of ACS Victoria in 2020. I wish you all a safe and happy holiday season!

Kind regards,

?Maria Markman, Chair, ACS Victoria (2017 - 2020)

* Active financial members in Victoria in November 2016 vs November 2020