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ACS News

ACS staff, Information Age

14/10/2005 16:26:39

ACS Foundation scholarships attract outstanding students

If the test of any initiative is the quality of its output, then the ACS Foundation is a runaway success.

The ACS Foundation's scholarship candidates attract universal approval for their academic achievements, willingness to learn and apply themselves, their impressive personal qualities and professional approach to their work and studies.

The recent addition of year-long, industry placement scholarships under the ACS Foundation's Work Integrated Learning program has created a host of new opportunities for students currently engaged in ICT-related degree courses.

RMIT student Shobhit Nanda is undertaking a 12-month internship at Agilent Technologies as part of his five-year double degree in computer systems engineering and computer science.

An outstanding student, Shobhit initially began on a product quality assurance project and has now progressed to developing and testing software.

"While the Tcltk scripting language is new to me, it's pretty simple once you know one language to adapt to another, especially when you're exposed to it every day. The team here has been really helpful and offer lots of advice - it's definitely the kind of environment in which I'd like to work after graduating," he said.

Shobhit is grateful to the ACS Foundation for the scholarship opportunity and said his experiences in the workforce will influence his future subject choices at university.

"The work is really exciting - it's not like doing assignments that never see the light of day. I'm working on real-life products and am solving real customer problems and that's been a fabulous experience."

IBM has added more than a dozen ACS Foundation students to its year-long internship program since establishing a formal relationship with the Foundation earlier this year.

IBM's University Internship Facilitator, Jeremy Crooks, said the calibre of students provided by the ACS Foundation Work Integrated Learning Program has been excellent.

"We've been very happy with the quality of candidates from the ACS Foundation. Of course, each one brings their own unique strengths and abilities, but we particularly like their passion and their willingness to roll up their sleeves and get involved, not just in the glamour tasks, but also the hard work that needs to be done as well," he said.

"Having a relationship with the ACS Foundation means we can work with a single agency to access a large range of outstanding talent. It's also great having a central point of contact from an administrative and productivity standpoint since it greatly reduces the workload and time component for us."

Charles Ojaimi joined IBM in February for his cooperative year, rather than accept an offer to spend six months with a company in Germany. A fourth-year RMIT student, he will return to university next March to complete the final semester in his Bachelor of Business Information Systems.

"I applied for a scholarship after the ACS Foundation advertised their availability at RMIT and so far it's been a fantastic experience," said Charles. "IBM is a great place to work - the people are excellent and it's a very supportive environment. IBM provided all the training we needed to settle quickly into this role and my supervisor has been fantastic, guiding us through everything until we could stand on our own feet and continue on from there."

Placed in a systems administrator role, he was recently promoted to team leader on the strength of his technical capabilities, professionalism and leadership skills.

"The fact that Charles has been with us such a short period of time and already put into a team leadership role is recognition of his skills and attributes, and the respect he has amongst his colleagues," said Crooks.

"He has demonstrated an impressive level of maturity and professionalism and we've been extremely happy with his progress."

An active student member of the ACS, Charles regularly attends branch forums and also volunteered his time to assist at last year's ACS National Conference in Melbourne and the recent SEARCC Conference in Sydney.

"I really like the ACS - I appreciate the way they're out there fighting for us and the opportunities they provide to obtain new knowledge and connect with other IT professionals," Ojaimi said. "I always go to the monthly meetings and enjoy the opportunity to interact with working professionals and meet new contacts."

He has been interested in computers for many years and completed a two-year Advanced Diploma of IT before embarking on his current degree. He's also an active member of the Army Reserve and says the training and discipline imposed through that environment has contributed to his latest success.

"In many ways, army and business go hand in hand. Both require a high degree of discipline and commitment, along with the ability to demonstrate leadership and organise your time."

Tax advice for home-based business The Australian Tax Office offers some advice to members on capital gains Operating a business can keep you away from home for long hours every day. Operating a business from home can be an attractive alternative, but if you have a home-based business, there are a number of tax issues that you should be aware of.

Capital gains tax (CGT) When you operate a business from home you should think about possible capital gains tax implications if you decide to sell your home.

Usually your main residence is exempted from capital gains tax. This changes however, if you use your home to generate income. So if you run a home-based business, you may need to pay capital gains tax if you sell your home.

Generally, you will only pay capital gains tax on a capital gain if you •acquired the home after 19 September 1985 •used part of the home to earn business income during the time you owned it and •would be entitled to deduct any interest you incurred on money borrowed to buy the home.

You would be entitled to an interest deduction only if you set aside part of your home exclusively to operate your business and you can't readily adapt that part of the home for your private use. The amount of CGT will depend on how much of your home you used for business purposes.

If you have a capital gain you can reduce it by the 50 per cent general discount that applies to individuals, and you also may be able to apply one or more of the small business CGT concessions to further reduce your capital gain. However to do this you must meet some basic conditions. You can find out more about these on the Tax Office Web site.

The Web site also has detailed information on the small business concessions and a new capital gains property exemption tool that helps you work out what proportion of any capital gain or loss is subject to CGT when you dispose of the property.

Records you need to keep Record keeping is an important part of any business. If you're operating a business from your home, it's important to keep records that will help you to easily calculate any capital gains if you sell your home. You'll need to record when the business started operating from the home, and detail the proportion of the floor area dedicated to your business. If this changes over the years, you must keep a record of the increase or decrease in usage, as it will affect your overall capital gains tax liability.

You also need a record of the value of your house when you started your business and the costs of any subsequent additions or alterations. If you didn't get a valuation at the time you started your business from home, you'll need a retrospective valuation.

What expenses can you claim? There are a number of expenses you can claim, depending on whether you have a dedicated area for your business.

If you've dedicated an area to your business in your home, like a room or a shed, you should be entitled to claim a portion of your occupancy expenses such as rent, mortgage interest, council rates and housing insurance premiums. You can also claim a portion of your heating and electricity costs.

You can still claim expenses for running your business if you don't have a separate office. You may be able to claim running expenses like electricity and gas costs for heating or cooling a room you use. However you can only claim the costs for the time you were in the room working on the business.

You can also claim the depreciation of plant and equipment used in your business like desks and chairs, computers, and the cost of any repairs they may need.

The cost of travel for reasons associated with a business is generally deductible. So if you are carrying on a home-based business, you may be able to claim the cost of trips between your home and other places, provided the cost is incurred in the course of carrying on your business.

[sidebar]

For individuals

Deductions for the work related expenses of your computer --

If you don't operate a home-based business but work from home on your computer you can claim some deductions for your computer on your income tax return.

You can claim a deduction for the work-related portion of the cost of repairs to your computer, interest on the money borrowed to finance the cost of your computer, the depreciation of your computer and the computer software.

If you use your computer and software partly for work and partly for private purposes, you can only claim the proportion of the cost of repairs and a proportion of their depreciation.

The Tax Office Web site www.ato.gov.au has all the information to help you understand and meet your tax obligations.

If you are registered for online services, you can lodge or revise your BAS, get free record-keeping software, check your business tax accounts, register for an ABN, a tax file number, GST, pay as you go (PAYG) withholding and much more.

You can also prepare and lodge your individual tax return using the Tax Office's free lodgement service e-tax.

You will also find booklets including the Guide to Capital Gains Tax 2004-05, and fact sheets to help you understand tax issues, that you can downloaded free from www.ato.gov.au.

Australians gain international recognition by ICT peak body

Three Australians have been recognised in the latest awards and elections of IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing), the UN-sponsored peak professional body for those working in information and communications technology (ICT).

At the recent meeting of its general assembly in Gaborone, Botswana, IFIP conferred Outstanding Service Awards to two Australian researchers, Associate Professor Anne McDougall of Melbourne University and Dr Helen Armstrong of Curtin University.

It also elected incoming Australian representative and ACS Vice President Chris Avram as a Council Trustee, elevating him to its key decision-making body.

As the global body for ICT professionals, IFIP represents over 400,000 ICT professionals from around the world through member associations like the ACS (Australian Computer Society), which represents 14,000 Australians.

Avram said at the Botswana meeting that Australian ICT professionals play an active role within IFIP and are highly respected internationally.

"Australians are prominent within IFIP's technical committees and working groups in areas as diverse as computer science, education, artificial intelligence and information security. These awards are given to prominent academics and industry leaders who make a significant contribution to the initiatives and activities of IFIP.

"Considering that only a handful of these awards is given out each year, it's very pleasing to see that Australians account for two of them," he said.

Winning Australian researchers Prof McDougall is Head of Melbourne University's Science and Mathematics Education Department and Australia's representative on IFIP's Technical Committee 3 (Education) where she participates in three working groups. She is also Chair of the ACS National Computers in Education Committee and a member of the Australian Council for Computers in Education.

She has attended and presented papers at five World Computer Conferences in Education (WCCE), including WCCE90 in Sydney, where she served on the International Program Committee and was proceedings editor.

Dr Armstrong is a Senior Lecturer in Curtin University's School of Information Systems, specialising in computer security. She has been a long-term member of Working Group 8 (Security Education) within IFIP's Technical Committee 11 and chaired that group from 2001-May this year. She has also been instrumental in organising all four of the WISE conferences (World Conference on Information Security Education), held in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005.

ACS representative elected to IFIP Council Representing Australia at his first IFIP General Assembly, ACS Vice President Chris Avram was elected to one of eight Trustee positions on the IFIP Council who, together with its president, vice presidents, treasurer and secretary, make up IFIP's key decision-making body.

He will serve as Australian representative to IFIP for the next four years, taking over from former ACS President Prins Ralston, who held the roles of IFIP Vice President and Publications Committee Chair during his six years of service.

IFIP passes declaration to help developing nations The IFIP General Assembly was held in conjunction with WITFOR 2005 (World Information Technology Forum 2005), which was organised by IFIP under the auspices of UNESCO and attended by two Presidents and 20 Ministers from neighbouring African nations.

Focused on the needs of developing countries, the declaration affirmed IFIP's commitment to use ICT to: help eradicate poverty; bridge the digital divide; enable capacity-building ICT innovation strategies; and encourage diverse partnerships and promote collaborative networks. The declaration focused on the need to apply ICT in the areas of agriculture, infrastructure, economic opportunity, education, empowerment and participation, environment, health, and social, ethical and legal aspects.

As part of its commitment to these projects, IFIP has begun a sustainable development program that offers young ICT researchers and students (under 35) short-term scholarships to enable them to increase their knowledge of developing countries and the issues they face. More information on these scholarships is available through the ACS.

New directors, Fellows named

Two new ACS board directors have been named, and six members elevated to the status of Fellow. New board directors Rathika Suresh will serve as director of the Community Affairs Board (CAB), which drives ACS policy initiatives in the areas of education, health, ethics, legal and community issues. An IT professional for over 20 years, she currently works as IT manager at Pymble Ladies College, providing IT infrastructure and resources for a network of over 2400 laptops used by staff and students. Tom Worthington has been appointed director of the Communications Technologies Board. A former ACS President (1996-7), he spent several years within the Department of Defence and today consults in the Internet and Broadband space within Australia and overseas as well as contributing to policy submissions. As board director, he plans to build close links with IEEE-CS and the ACM to help drive ACS policy in the telecommunications arena. ACS President Edward Mandla said the new directors are well qualified to contribute to the on-going work of the ACS. "Both Rathika and Tom have substantial experience relevant to their portfolios and I am confident they'll have many opportunities to help further the Society's goals and initiatives. Tom has already proven himself as a past President and as director of the ACS Publications Board and was awarded an ACS Fellowship several years ago for his contributions to the ICT sector. "I'm delighted to announce that six additional members have now been recognised as ACS Fellows for their outstanding achievements," he said. New Fellows Jeff Ferguson has enjoyed a distinguished career both in industry and academia, managing a small software company and later teaching at the University of Western Sydney, where he was a member of the Global Information Technology Group. He has also consulted with overseas universities in course design and implementation with the Asia Development Bank, published many articles and book chapters and presented at various conferences.

Because of his outstanding work in this group he was one of few people selected to represent Australia in the International Federation of Information Processing under the auspices of UNESCO. Malcolm Grierson is currently Director General, Department of Public Works in Queensland, driving significant areas of State Government ICT (responsible for 4700 employees and an operating budget in over $1 billion). An IT professional and ACS member since the 1960s, he has served in numerous positions within government, including a previous role as Executive Director of CITEC, a 550-employee ICT agency.

He has also been actively committed to community service, through activities such as "joint government champion" for the community of Palm Island. Simon Hackett is one of the Internet's true pioneers and participated in building AARNet (the Australian research and educational version of the Internet) while working at Adelaide University. He founded two successful telecommunications companies, Internode Systems and Agile, and helped drive the Coorong Communication project, which created the first significant non-Telstra data and voice networks into a major regional area.

His latest project is Cine.net.au, an ICT industry/screen media industry collaboration to promote SA screen media and visual effects work. Professor V Lakshmi Narasimhan has had a distinguished career both as an ICT academic and research scientist and is renowned for his innovative software technologies for submarine combat, geospatial data delivery and software testing. He served for several years as principal research scientist at the Australian Defence and Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), and although most of his work here was classified, he has produced over 100 publications.

He is currently Professor and Chair in Software Engineering at the University of Newcastle and continues to lead research in areas such as large-scale systems engineering, testing and visualisation, agent technologies and distributed object computing. Professor Paul Swatman is highly regarded as a researcher and teacher, having held professorial roles at both Australian and overseas universities, including dean and head of school. He has received around 30 research grants and directed or been involved in several research centres, including the Centre for Object Technology, Applications and Research and the Centre for Information Systems Research as well as a visiting Fellow/Professor at leading overseas universities. He served as director of the ACS Information Systems Board from 1995-7. Stephen White has made a significant contribution to the field of ICT law, both nationally and internationally, participating in extensive litigation cases in the Federal court relating to telecommunications systems and technology against leading technology firms. He has provided significant legal advice as needed on contract disputation, copyright and intellectual property, assisting many ACS members freely and without fee where it was appropriate.

He has also presented to organisations, ACS conferences and university courses in the area of ICT and the law, and published significant documentation in the area. He is one of few people with both legal and ICT expertise, using both to make a distinguished contribution to IT in Australia.

New examiners join ACS assessment team

Two new examiners, Dr Bhuvan Unhelkar and Edward Stowe, have joined the ACS assessment team to adjudicate in the ACS Associate Membership examinations for a Diploma of Information Technology.

Both are experts in object oriented analysis and design and will share responsibility for the Object Oriented Systems Development subject. Dr Unhelkar, a Fellow of the ACS who teaches at the University of Western Sydney and runs the consultancy firm MethodScience, is author of nine books including Practical Object Oriented Analysis and Practical Object Oriented Design (Thomson Publishing, 2005.)

Stow teaches the Unified Modelling Language (UML) and Rational Unified Process (RUP) at Charles Sturt University and has taught overseas in the UK, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

Both are updating the present OO syllabus beyond its present focus on architecture and design to include the understanding, capturing and modelling of requirements, and the relating of requirements with testing, to achieve software quality.

Has pic

Prof Ren Potts, 1925-2005

Emeritus Professor R.B. Potts AO FAA FTSE and member of the Pearcey Foundation Hall of Fame died on August 9.

Ren was an undergraduate at the University of Adelaide in the 1940's, 1948 Rhodes Scholar and Professor of Applied Mathematics from the late 1950's until his retirement in 1990. He was a leading figure in the Applied Mathematics community in Australia and internationally.

He served the University of Adelaide in many roles including departmental head, dean of the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, chairman of its education committee and as a member of the University Council.

Ren Potts was one of the first to learn to program and use the Weapons Research Establishment Digital Automatic Computer (WREDAC) in 1956, and was responsible for establishing the University of Adelaide Computing Centre.

He was the inaugural President of the Computer Society of South Australia founded in 1960 and is regarded as a founder of ACS.

Ren was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences in 1975, and admitted to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1983, one of few academics have been admitted to both.

Even after his retirement in 1990 honours kept coming: he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1991 and was the inaugural recipient of the ANZIAM (Australian Mathematical Society) medal in 1995.

Ren was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2003, and in 2004 inducted into the Pearcey Hall of Fame.

Discount on Red Hat training

ACS members now qualify for a 16 per cent discount on Red Hat Enterprise Linux training after the Society signed a partnership agreement with Red Hat.

Red Hat Australia's services manager, Peter Durie, said continued growth in Linux server shipments means skilled people are in demand. "We are very excited about the partnership with ACS. This is further proof that Linux has a strong and certain future in the Australian enterprise, and that Red Hat training is highly regarded by the industry."

As the leading Linux distributor, Red Hat's Linux certifications have become the de facto industry standard, regularly rating highly in surveys and training comparisons.

Red Hat training courses are held in all Australian capitals. To determine which course best meets your needs, go to https://www.apac.redhat.com/training to conduct a pre-assessment. You can register for training at the same address and should quote RHACS, together with your ACS membership number in the Special Offer Code field, to get the discount.

ACS national president Edward Mandla welcomed the agreement and encouraged members to take advantage of this offer: "This is a great initiative and provides an outstanding benefit for our members. We are looking forward to extending the partnership with Red Hat into other areas beyond training."