On the evening of 17 June (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane time), UIC members in Australia held another short meeting with UIC in Paris to discuss matters that are important to members in Australia.
With the broader use of technology for conducting meetings, UIC has been able to engage with members all around the world in a manner that is both convenient and cost effective. On this occasion, Dan Mandoc, Head of FRMCS at UIC, gave a brief presentation on the development and future of FRMCS and Cybersecurity. Members were able to see and hear how the FRMCS project is progressing and how this might affect their own systems. Similarly, with Cybersecurity, it was pleasing to see how UIC is responding to this challenge. This follows on from two previous sessions that UIC has held with Australian members. The first on 8 April where UIC introduced Australian members to UIC Governance Arrangements and how the Asia Pacific region functions within UIC, and a second meeting on 7 May where Alice Favre, Head of Statistics at UIC, gave a presentation on UIC Statistics collection and reporting, and Célia Levy, UIC Chief Standardisation Officer gave a presentation on the Standardisation and development of UIC leaflets.
Travel restrictions linked to Covid-19 created an opportunity to accelerate the use of technology to communicate and the greater willingness to adopt this as a useful means of meeting. From an Australian perspective, this will bring Australian members closer to the UIC community and no longer will distance be a barrier to participate. The only challenge we need to overcome now is that of the time difference between Australia and other countries around the globe.
In the past, because travel has been such a challenge for members to attend UIC events, Australian members have found it challenging to participate in UIC activities because of the distance to travel and the time taken out of the working week.
Holding short sharp information events on a regular basis has proved very successful and will enable a greater degree of collaboration with members. We will continue to hold these events online and will bring the Australian industry closer to the rest of the UIC family.
