On the 20th of November, 28 members of the IICA community came together for the Annual Fellows Dinner from all over Australia joined by guest speakers from Bosch and IntelliMedical.
The night started with a welcoming speech from Craig Baade, the returning Federal President of the IICA. During his speech Craig thanked Maruta Rodan for her service as Executive Officer. Maruta has contributed a huge amount to IICA and we wish her well in her future endeavours. Craig is coming back for a second term as IICA Federal President and hopefully under his leadership the IICA will continue to grow and prosper.
Greg Garrihy followed Craig with an inspiring talk on what he has achieved in his short time as CEO and what he expects to achieve in the coming year. It was great to hear of the improvements made in such a short time and we are all looking forward to what can be achieved in 2016.
Greg also took the opportunity to present some of our most long-standing fellows with a token of acknowledgement- Bob Weiss, Malcolm Robins, Dirk Kuiper, Gavin Willox and John Dusting have all been IICA members for over 30 years! Not only do their professional achievements in the automation, instrumentation and control fields crown them as fellows, but their long-standing support of the IICA shows what persistence over time can do.
Perhaps the highlight of the night was the IICA Fellows Committee Discussion. William Duddy and Vincent Wong lead an engaging discussion with the fellows present covering topics ranging from advice for breaking into industry to suggestions in areas of specialisation. The fellows were incredibly keen to offer their support and it was the perfect start to a new project: The IICA Fellows Mentoring Initiative which will endeavour to connect our student members with our fellows to share knowledge and ideas.
The first guest speaker for the night, Peter Olsson from Bosch gave an engaging presentation on the future of ‘Collaborative Robots’. Peter demonstrated the current position of Bosch robots and their capabilities to not only complete tasks designed for humans but work alongside them safely and efficiently. The topic of robotic automation may be controversial but it is clear to see another game changer is entering the world of automation.
Closing the night was Dr Geoff Rogers from Intellimedical. Geoff is an incredible person who has achieved so much. Currently his company is developing a system to hugely improve the area of non-invasive heart surgery. He hopes to equip heart surgeons with a tool that will make installing stents in common heart surgery more predictable and controllable by using nano-robots to guide wires thinner than a hair through the blood vessels leading up to the heart.
Overall the speakers were inspiring, the discussion was lively and the company was great. Thank you to all the Fellows for your company and your ongoing support for the IICA and the control and automation industry. It was a great finish to 2015 marks a new beginning for 2016.