About 850 students from over 40 schools took part in day 1 of the Sydney Big Day In at UTS (University of Technology Sydney).

The Big Day In events are run all over Australia by the Australian Computer Society Foundation with an aim to encourage young people to consider a career in the IT industry.

Hon Victor Dominello MP, NSW Minister for Finance, Services & Property, along with Professor Attila Brugs, Vice Chancellor & President of UTS and Andrew Johnson, CEO of the Australian Computer Society set the scene be welcoming the students and encouraging them to make the most of this opportunity to engage with a wealth of IT industry experience.

Hon Victor Dominello, welcoming the students

John Ridge (Executive Director of the ACS Foundation), Andrew Johnson (CEO of ACS), Hon Victor Dominello MP, Professor Attila Brugs (Vice Chancellor UTS)

Anna Emmerson, Google Engineer, was the first of a series of presenters from a wide range of IT and Media companies, all with similar messages about what skills young people should be developing to prepare themselves for the future.

Anna Emmerson from Google

Another highlighted presenter was Dan Bowen. Dan is Microsoft’s STEM/Minecraft and Imagine Academy Lead. He explored future trends and technologies from the cloud to artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Dan Bowen from Microsoft

Other presenters on this day Fergal Murphy from IBM, Jimmy Taylor & Kristy English from Westpac, Richard White from WiseTech Global, Adam Smith from the Australian Government ICT Apprenticeships & Candetships, Ellena Thompson from the NSW Department of Industry, Dr Tony Wagner from the Commonwealth Bank, Matt Deshomn from TechnologyOne and Michael Quandt from Animal Logic, the makers of The Logo Movie and the soon to be released The Lego Batman Movie.

Michael Quandt from Animal Logic

Me & Michael

Michael was a hard act to follow, especially at the end of a long day for the students but it was my job to finish the day with a bang and encourage the students to think about the key messages from all the presenters and the many common themes.

Here is my keynote session from this event …

It was a pleasure to share with the students some of Adobe’s recent GenZ research (http://adobeeducate.com/genz/) and to encourage them to develop the skills to brand themselves in creative ways so that they can stand out from the crowd. My key message was for them to see themselves as life long creators.

Between the presentation there was time for the students to meet the presenters and others from a wide range of IT companies.

Special thank you to Jerry Wong & Anna Nakao from Adobe for helping to look after the Adobe stand.