The past two months have been an exciting time as LifeJourney has worked across Australia to bring careers in STEM and cyber security to life for students and teachers. The engagements have focused primarily supporting the ASD CyberEXP program through in-person workshops in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle. 

Cyber Teacher Workshop in Fremantle

John Curtin College of the Arts hosted the very first Cyber Teach Meet workshop in WA through the leadership of mathematics teacher Donna Buckley and Michelle Ellis of Edith Cowan University. The workshop was also provided via WebEx and featured Peter Morris from the Perth Join Cyber Security Centre, Paul Haskell Dowland and Michelle Ellis from ECU, Richard Holland from Hivint and an ECU cyber security student. Donna Buckley shared her experience as a Cyber Teacher and provided an overview of the ASD CyberEXP program.  

Cyber Teacher Workshop at Australian Cyber Conference

LifeJourney delivered it’s Cyber Teacher workshop at the 2019 Australian Cyber Conference (CyberCon) in early October at the industry’s largest event of the year. Conference organisers, the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) provided teachers with complimentary admission to the entire conference. 

The workshop featured presentations from Cyber Teachers, including Matt Hall of Mount Waverley Secondary College, Donna Buckley of John Curtin College of the Arts and Gary Bass of Virtual Schools Victoria about their experience in delivering cyber security learning in the classroom. LifeJourney Mentor, Stuart Mort, provided an industry perspective of his unique journey in the field, highlighting the fact that countries such as Israel have had cyber security in the curriculum for 15 years. Plans for the 2020 CyberCon conference will include the development of a dedicated teacher stream for the conference. 

See Yourself in the Future – DiF Event @ Holmesglen

To help celebrate the Victorian Government’s 2019 Digital Innovation Festival, LifeJourney teamed up with the Holmesglen Institute to offer area secondary students an opportunity to explore career pathways of the future. In addition to learning about career pathways, students took part in a mini-competition where they solved industry challenges with their peers. 

QLD STEM Teacher Symposium and Cyber Teacher Workshop at UQ

LifeJourney was invited to participate in the Queensland Department of Education’s annual STEM Teacher Symposium in late September. The event showcased best practices and learnings for schools across Queensland with a series of workshops, presentations and exhibitors booth. LifeJourney also facilitated a QLD DoE OneChannel webinar and attended the Industry Partnerships Forum earlier in 2019. 

In mid-October, LifeJourney and the University of Queensland facilitated a Cyber Teacher workshop to share the ASD CyberEXP program with Queensland secondary teachers. The workshop featured John Williams and Marie Boden from UQ, Tim Edwards from LifeJourney, Ewan Ward from the Brisbane Joint Cyber Security Centre and Dan Bocault from Cisco. 

Informa STEM in Education Conference in Sydney

Tim Edwards from the LifeJourney provided a keynote to the Informa 2019 STEM in Education conference in Sydney, highlighting LifeJourney’s work to promote STEM careers over the past three years in Australia. The presentation included highlights from the past year including the Future Careers in STEM workshop series in the Northern Territory. 

Cyber Career Pathways – Student Workshop in Adelaide

In support of Australian Cyber Week and Stay Smart Online campaign, LifeJourney facilitated a student workshop at the Adelaide Joint Cyber Security Centre for secondary students during the school holidays. Students participated in the ASD CyberEXP and discussed Stay Smart Online recommendations and strategies. 

The event was organised in partnership with the Advanced Technologies Project of the SA Department of Education and featured Litsa Polygerinos of the Adelaide Joint Cyber Security Centre, James Galdes of Optus and Jason Xue of the University of Adelaide sharing their journeys in cyber security.