ARCIA announces latest scholarship program

For several years, ARCIA has offered annual scholarships and these have been named in honour of Sir Angus Tait, the New Zealand inventor and pioneer who played a huge role in the development of the radio communications industry in Australasia.

These scholarships were initiated to encourage degree or diploma students to undertake a radio communications subject within their course content and encourage them to continue on and find employment within the radio communications sphere.

The scholarships were also broadened recently to include apprentices and trainees to benefit a wider spread of industry recipients.

It was suggested by Devran Roberts of CA Bearcom that perhaps a new perspective was needed with regard to the scholarships.

The new scholarships, announced by Ian Miller at the ARCIA annual gala dinner, will provide regional scholarship winners a chance to visit RadioComms Connect, with the national winner going on to visit an international radio event such as CommunicAsia.

The state winners will be chosen from:

• New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory
• Queensland
• Victoria and Tasmania
• South Australia and Northern Territory
• Western Australia

These five regional scholarship winners will be awarded a ‘delegate pass’ for RadioComms Connect to attend with full delegate status with access to sessions of their choice. As part of the regional scholarship award they will have accommodation and basic expenses supplied as well as perhaps a travel subsidy. The winners will also attend the ARCIA Industry Gala Dinner to be presented as the Sir Angus Tait Regional Scholarship winners.

One of the five will be announced as the overall winner of the Sir Angus Tait Memorial Award. This award winner would be provided with a trip to either IWCE or CommunicAsia for the following year, with travel and accommodation expenses, together with a delegate pass for one or two days supplied as part of the award conditions. The SAT winner would then be coached as to what to expect at the event and mentored regarding the most suitable sessions to attend given the level of interest shown by the nominee.

During the next year, the SAT Memorial Award winner would be coached to give a full presentation at RCC on their perspective of the event they attended, and what items and trends they could see that were of interest to the Australian radio communications market.

The regional winners (including the SAT overall winner) would also be requested to give a five- or 10-minute presentation at their relevant regional industry dinner to highlight the opportunities for young people to enter the industry and what can be achieved.

For more information on the regional scholarships, please visit the ARCIA website or contact info@arcia.org.au.