5 Minutes With... Gail Bray, Director, Wyndham Tech School, Innovation and Technology and ACS Member
10th August 2020
Highlights
- Gail Bray is the Director of the Wyndham Tech School, Innovation and Technology, with a key responsibility of partnering with secondary schools in Wyndham and Hobsons Bay, Victoria to prepare them for jobs in the future.
- In Gails own words,“Managing the speed of change, organisations are struggling to keep up, we are starting to see the impact of automation and cybersecurity threats on businesses, and many of their challenges are in the upskilling of staff to be able to use a variety of technologies this is particularly challenging for our SMEs.”.
Gail Bray is the Director of the Wyndham Tech School, Innovation and Technology, with a key responsibility of partnering with secondary schools in Wyndham and Hobsons Bay, Victoria, to connect them with futuristic technologies and training, to prepare them for jobs in the future.
We spent some time with Gail recently, to find out what keeps her interest in tech ticking, and the achievements and challenges that herself and the team have encountered recently.
1. What do you enjoy most about working in tech?
The uncertainty of what’s next, the challenge of keeping up and discovering what’s possible with advancements in technology. Then translating for the education sector so our students are receiving the most up to date training that opens their eyes to careers they may not have heard of and preparing them for the future of work.
2. Within your current role and team, what’s the biggest achievement you’ve celebrated?
Translating hands-on learning into remote delivery, at Wyndham Tech School we conduct practical sessions where students get to interact with emerging technologies such as robotics, with COVID we had to work out a way to continue to conduct these sessions, we came up with the idea of taking the robots to the students and ran a very successful robot at home coding challenge during lockdown.
3. What has been the greatest challenge you and the team have overcome during the COVID-19 crisis?
Uncertainty, not knowing what to expect, the team and I had to get on with it knowing our plans could change in an instant ie. one minute students were preparing to return to the Tech School and the next minute we are going remote again. We had to constantly adapt to the ever changing conditions to ensure we could continue to deliver the learning experiences our students were expecting.
4. What do you see are the challenges for the sector? And how do you wish to contribute to resolving them?
Managing the speed of change, organisations are struggling to keep up, we are starting to see the impact of automation and cybersecurity threats on businesses, and many of their challenges are in the upskilling of staff to be able to use a variety of technologies this is particularly challenging for our SMEs. There is no easy answer to resolving this, however I believe just-in-time training (micro-credentialing) will help alleviate some of the pressure on businesses.
5. Looking forward, past the crisis, what changes for the good do you hope to see for businesses and employees?
More flexible working arrangements, less unnecessary travelling for meetings and events. Before COVID-19, we were all so busy commuting and managing work and family, we didn’t question – can we do this over Zoom? Now we have a chance to use technology to support a more realistic work/lifestyle balance not to mention the benefits to the environment and individual’s mental health.
6. How has ACS membership supported your organisations journey in tech?
Through our ACS membership our staff have access to articles, webinars, mentors and mentee programs as well as special events by leading experts in tech, our students can become members and receive many benefits that help them to break into the tech industry, this is critical for our organization to keep up with this fast changing sector.
"5 Minutes With..." is a series of articles showcasing exceptional ACS Members and their amazing, innovative, and game changing stories. Representing over 48,000 tech professionals across Australia, our Members work across industry, government, research, and education organisations and each edition highlights the role they are playing in making Australia a world leader in technology talent, fostering innovation, and creating new forms of value.