Significant value has been realised by institutions in Australia and New Zealand through CAUDIT acting as a platform for collaboration, from sharing best practice through to collective procurement arrangements that have resulted in significant savings. Over the past decade much of what has been achieved through these collaborative efforts has leveraged only a modest amount of collaborative technology; namely, teleconferences, emails and the very occasional videoconference.
Collaborative technologies from a number of vendors offer much promise and could have a significant force multiplier effect, enabling institutions to gain even more value through collaboration. Yet challenges remain that limit their adoption and widespread use, particularly when individuals wish to collaborate with others outside their home institution.
This session will highlight various efforts to create cross institutional collaborative environments, including a new collaborative environment by CAUDIT to not only help IT Directors/CIOs, but help the 6500 IT professionals spread across all institutions in Australia and New Zealand. It will reflect on the challenges and what we as IT leaders must do to enable our staff to effectively leverage modern collaborative technologies.
Richard Northam currently holds the role of General Manager of the Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology and is a board member of the Australian Access Federation Inc. Richard has more than 20 years experience in the ICT industry and has worked in the Private, Commonwealth Government and Higher Education Sectors in Australia.
He has held several senior management appointments including the IT Manager at the University of New South Wales @ the Australian Defence Force Academy, Network Manager at the Insurance and Superannuation Commission and Associate Director of the Information Management & Technology Branch at the then Department of Primary Industries & Energy. He also served as the Director of Information Systems within the Headquarters of the Australian Air Force Cadets with the Department of Defence.
Throughout his career, Richard has taken a strategic leadership role in shaping and enhancing the role of Information Technology within various organisations. In his current role Richard has helped shape the future of CAUDIT as a platform for collaboration for IT staff in Higher Education, and has taken a leadership role in negotiating sector wide procurement arrangements with suppliers which delivered significant value to Higher Education. More recently he has played a key national/international leadership role in enhancing research through the use of new methodologies that are enabled by information technology. Richard has also presented at a number of conferences on topics including Cloud Computing, Federated Identity Access Management, IT Benchmarking, IT Leadership and represented the IT interests of the Australian Higher Education at various international forums and meetings. He has recently co-authored an article in EDUCAUSE Review on “Cloud Computing and the Power to Choose”.
Richard holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics) from Curtin University and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is also a 1st Dan Black Belt Instructor in Tae Kwon Do, a qualified Snowboarding Instructor and continues to maintain an active lifestyle through these sports as well as Mountain Biking and Squash as well as a keen interest in photography.