Looking to the Future Thursday, 15 December 2016

Everyone this festival season has commented that 2016 has passed by faster than any previous year, which has compelled us to take time to reflect on the year that has been and what 2017 will bring. 

From an operational perspective, we have hosted and supported numerous successful CPD and networking events with the help of our learned society committees and volunteers such as: the Graduate Edge series; Footings Workshop; EESA Nuclear Energy Forum; Power: The Next 5 Years event; Gen2Xmas; and many more. 

Meanwhile, strategically, we have taken up a great number of opportunities to strengthen our position as ‘the trusted voice of the profession’ and promoted engineering to school students through the Scientists and Mathematicians in Schools Program, the SUBS in Schools Competition and through the Ingenuity program run by the University of Adelaide. Over the past year, we have continued to build our profile as the engineering knowledge advisor through meetings with key stakeholders including ministers, state officials, industry, and academics, as well as through printed media articles and radio interviews.

Looking forward, through a shared leadership approach, the South Australia (SA) Division Committee and SA Division staff are working on initiatives to encourage school students to study and get involved with science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs (STEM); inspire tomorrow’s engineers; connect student, graduate and unemployed members with those in practice; enhance member value; and promote the National Engineering Register (NER). We believe that these initiatives together with the new national strategic direction of Engineers Australia will allow us to remain relevant in a constantly changing environment.

We wish to thank those who have volunteered on our committees in 2016 for all of their hard work and the positive energy they have brought to the Division.  To those have attended events across the year, we hope you have gained new knowledge, great experiences and long lasting connections. 

We wish all of our members the best for the remainder of 2016 and look forward to seeing you in 2017.

Renae Leverenz                                                   Niki Robinson FIEAust
General Manager South Australia                     2016 President South Australia