The 3rd Annual General meeting of Accelerating Auckland was held in June 24th. Hosted by Unitec the meeting took place at Carrington's Cafe on Unitec's Carrington Campus.
The full text of the Executive Director's Annual Report to Members follows here:
3rd ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
2009, Report to Members
It is my pleasure at our third Annual General Meeting to present the Society’s Annual Report for the 2008 financial year. This Annual Report sets out what we achieved in the past year and shares a glimpse of our future. In December of the year ending March 31st we completed our contractual obligations under our Tertiary Education Commission funding through Unitec. The deliverables were extensive but have provided us a broad platform upon which to build our future programme.
Some of the high points of this initial phase of Accelerating Auckland’s work include the:
- Participation of 235 senior Auckland secondary students in the Go IT programme, an encounter style workshop where students met in small groups with young professional mentors. The programme was delivered in partnership with Women in Technology and hosted by Microsoft and Vodafone. 6 schools and a total of 191 mentors took part over the period.
- Registration of more than a thousand internationals for the Auckland Hiring events where both skilled workers and recent graduates were offered the opportunity for speed interviews with New Zealand IT companies. This programme was delivered in partnership with the DoL Immigration and overall achieved close to 20% job placement.
- Distribution of 10,000 DVDs Accelerating Your Career with an IT Qualification to secondary and Tertiary students, nationwide.
- Establishment of CLIMB@Manukau and iTRAC with support from the Manukau City Council; initiatives we consider to be increasingly critical infrastructure for the recovery of New Zealand’s economy.
- Expansion of the University of Auckland’s CSI Academy to a programme supporting students from 7 Tertiaries.
- Establishment of an inter-regional programme for identifying and sharing of best practice and innovation across regions to develop ICT skills in priority sectors. The “NISC” (National ICT Skills Collaboration), connects local and central government representatives with NGO partners and industry to establish a national framework for the delivery of collaborative projects.
Completion of this phase of Accelerating Auckland’s work is marked by two final achievements:
- The awarding of charitable status for the Society, and
- The establishment of Accelerating Aotearoa, enabling the delivery of digital literacy programmes nation-wide.
Work to advance the sustainability of Accelerating Auckland/ Aotearoa by streamlining our programme of work and broadening our partnership and funding base is now a priority.
Our project based focus is now four fold, building on the successes of our past work;
- Connecting Communities: where the broad relationships established through the CLIMB programme are brought together to identify, evaluate and support key skills development opportunities within communities
- Our research project Growing Work ready Graduates: Building a pathway from tertiary education to work, through internships. An evaluation in partnership with Unitec of co-operative education programmes to date as the foundation for future collaboration & delivery models.
- The Digital Careers Expos, in partnership with DOL Immigration where international students are connected with support services and employers to help them make study and career choices aligned with NZ’s future skills needs and become “work ready” for the NZ labour market.
- Our portal development, iTRAC: ITRAC is a web based talent tracking system delivering skills and competency profile information, including student participation and performance data from education and training providers, to business. iTRAC enables a comprehensive view of the full “talent pipeline” along with a framework for aggregation and analysis, region by region and nation-wide.
Underpinning this work is our rebranding as Accelerating Aotearoa reflecting the evolution of Accelerating Auckland as a charity along with its nation-wide delivery capabilities. This work is being supported by the Open Polytechnic
From the perspective of broadening our partnership base highlights include:
- Four further organisations being made members of the Society; Auckland Regional Council, Northern Regional Council, COMET (City of Manukau Education Trust) and Wigley and Co.
- Our work with the newly formed NZICT industry representative group to establish Accelerating Aotearoa as a delivery partner for their skills programme
- The acquisition of the connections and assets of the e-regions Trust
Core Group members for the 2009 -2010 year include representatives from Unitec, UoA, Massey University, Open Polytechnic, AUT, NZSE, five industry representatives and the Northland Regional Council representing regional economic development interests. Mr. Andrew Bonica was elected Chairman in October 2007 and has agreed to remain in the Chair for the 2009 – 2010 year.
We acknowledge the retirement from the Core Group of establishment members Ms Katrina Troughton of IBM, Mr Clyde Rogers of AucklandPlus and Mr Jim Cater of MIT. Thank you for your contributions to our vision to for this truly remarkable project.
The new Core Group, under the ongoing chairmanship of Andrew, gives us confidence for the period ahead, as does the highly talented and committed team of professionals that contribute tirelessly toward our common objectives. This team has provided significant vision, drive and support for the Programme over the past year and I look forward to working with them as we implement our plans for the 2009 – 2010 year.
Finally, I thank you for your attendance today, and all members who have made the time to participate in Accelerating Auckland, its projects and events over the past year. We welcome your participation in our work and look forward to seeing you all at our gatherings and events in the coming year.
Judy Speight
24th June 2009