Women in IT Luncheon
17 October 2006
The University of Ballarat, in conjunction with Vic ICT for Women, recently hosted a lunch to help celebrate Women in IT in the Ballarat region.
Over 35 women (and a few brave men) who have forged a career, or have a keen interest, in this ever expanding area attended the lunch to listen to presentations from local IT business women and men.
The lunch aimed to:
- Showcase women who are highly regarded within the ICT industry
- Provide a platform in which to champion the implementation of current technological business practices
- Provide an example of balancing country-city and family-work in a high-tech, high-pressure world
- Bring together ICT professionals from regional and metropolitan Victoria
- Provide role-models to young women interested in ICT
Ms Annie De Jong, Chief Information Officer at the City of Ballarat was the main speaker at the luncheon, reflecting on her key role in the development of IT at the City and the delicate (and often humorous) balancing act between career and home life.
Annie’s presentation was followed by Dr Patrice Braun, who spoke of her involvement at the recent 2006 APEC Forum on Digital Economy for Women: Innovation & Leadership Conference in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam; and Mr Cameron Woolfe who gave an overview of the Ballarat E.X.C.I.T.E Camp held in July 2006.
Presentations for downloading:
<Women in IT - Mrs Annie De Jong
Digital Economy for Women: Innovation & Leadership Conference – Dr Patrice Braun
Due to the overwhelmingly positive response by participants it is expected that similar events will become a more regular occurrence for the Ballarat region.
Speaker Profiles
Annie De Jong, Chief Information Officer, City of Ballarat
Annie moved from the financial industry to Local Government 15 years ago and has been with Ballarat City Council during this time. At Council Annie has managed IT, Records Management, Customer Service, Hallkeepers, Governance, HR, Organisation Development, Corporate Planning and Tourism (for a brief period).
Annie is married with 1 child Alex who is 8 years, and she will talk to us about choices, work-life balance and how she manages a career, family and sometimes time for herself.
Patrice Braun, Research Fellow, Centre for Regional Innovation and Competitiveness, University of Ballarat
Dr Patrice Braun is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Regional Innovation & Competitiveness at the University of Ballarat, which has a focus on small business and community capacity building; the adoption and use of ICT technologies; and regional clustering and networks. Patrice holds a PhD in regional development and small business innovation underpinned by technology. Patrice is a regular speaker at APEC and OECD forums on women and small business development and is the Australian focal point for the APEC research on Women's Participation in the Digital Economy. Patrice is an action researcher. Her research and consultancy philosophy is to work with rather than on people to achieve engagement, collaborative learning and action-oriented outcomes. Her interests include the weaving of technology with sustainable economic, social, environmental, and governance practices towards building capacity and viability in regional settings.
Cameron Woolfe, IBM A/NZ CERT Security Manager, IBM Regional Software Solutions
Cameron is a senior manager in IBM and has the overall management responsibilities of the IBM A/NZ CERT. He has 24 years of experience in information technology, with 4 years experience in the IT Security arena. Cameron’s experience includes work in fields such as access control, data centre management, remote access control, multi platform automation, client management incident mgt and threat assessment. Cameron’s current role includes responsibilities in security competency management in country with a global competency role in setting strategic direction for components of IBM’s security framework.
Cameron is active in the greater security community with work in the establishment of the Victorian ESecurity cluster. Cameron also lectures at the University of Ballarat on security matters and on careers in Information Technology and also professionally coaches’ university students on career and professional ethics.
Cameron has a passion for community. In this regard he is the chairman of the IBM Victorian OHS committee, executive of the Ballarat social committee, organiser of numerous school careers days and has advised Victorian Universities on their security and business curriculum.
On a personal note Cameron runs a successful cattle stud in rural Australia and is active in showing cattle in Victoria.