Happy New Year from ARCIA

Happy New Year and welcome to 2023. We are all wondering what the new year will bring; hopefully on the east coast we get a break from floods, fires and everything else that has been happening. During Comms Connect in Melbourne it was noted that in NSW, since the fires of 19–20 season, there have been over 500 local government area emergency declarations. There are only 125 local government areas in NSW, so many places have had multiple situations to deal with. Is it any wonder people are over it and need a break!

Our new CEO has hit the ground running and has been busy preparing for new events and programs in 2023. At the end of 2022 Paul has visited members in Victoria, Western Australia and Qld as well attending the Perth and Brisbane Sundowners.

Sundowners are a great way to get the industry locals together and in 2023 ARCIA intends to do more of these around Australia. If you would like to suggest a time and location for a Sundowner in your area, or maybe even help to organise one or help to tie one to a local event, please reach out to a local committee member or Paul Davis.

We also had many members attend the ACMA RadComms event to hear about many new areas of spectrum regulation and use cases. It is often worthwhile to attend these events to get an idea of what is coming to the market with new spectrum uses; some may compete with our industry, but often new applications can work in conjunction with our services and systems. One of the presentations shown at RadComms was the anticipated demand for 653,000 technical workers for Australia by 2030 (Tech Council, Accenture and Digital Skills Organisation 2022). It is very clear that Australia needs a skilled workforce across all sectors.

The CEO and executive are working hard on getting relevant technical training for our industry to become available as we know there is demand from a variety of sectors. What we are seeing is demand for basic RF knowledge, industry-specific information and comprehensive training courses. ARCIA is planning to have both face-to-face and online training session in 2023. At this moment they will start in late March in Perth for all our WA members.

As Paul Davis has been listening to our members and partners, we are also hearing from many businesses in the manufacturing sector. There are many companies in Australia making RF-based products, something that as a country we can be very proud of. ARCIA is looking for ways to promote our local industries, especially given the current weakness in supply chains. As technology moves and new opportunities arrive our industry can adapt, and the association intends to foster growth in the industry any way we can.

Lastly, the first official event for 2023 will be the committee planning days in Brisbane. The association has a huge agenda to fill in 2023 and there is a lot of work to be done. While our new CEO has the focus to achieve great things, the vast experience of the committee members needs to deliver the groundwork to allow that to happen.

Hamish Duff, Hon President

Australian Radio Communications Industry Association

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