Archive for the 'inspire' Category

Women In information and Communication (WIC) Events 09/10

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 30 August, 2009 in Women in ICT and inspire. 0 Comments

I have been involved in WIC for awhile and this year am Vice President of the Board so have a huge and challenging job ahead of me.

I am passionate about mentoring and i think that is why i love being involved in WIC. When i was starting out in ICT, there were few female role models for me to identify with or confide in. I found some fantastic male colleagues who were generous with their knowledge and helped me build and grow in this industry and through WIC, i hope to grow as a professional, inspire and mentor others (and not just my female colleagues).

There is a fantastic line up of speakers for this years breakfast series. The theme this year is “My Brilliant Career” and we have invited senior women with ICT in Canberra to come and tell their story. Details of the series are as follows:

2009-10 HOT Breakfast Series - Women in Leadership - My Brilliant Career

2009-10 HOT Breakfast Dates

  • Thursday 10 September 2009 – Ann Steward, Australian Government CIO

  • Thursday 15 October 2009 – Helen Austin, General Manager - Chief Solutions Architect SBR, The Treasury

  • Thursday 12 November 2009 – Narelle Dotta, CIO, Department of Veteran Affairs

  • Thursday 3 December 2009 – Kate Muir, Assistant Secretary, Department of Human Services

  • Thursday 11 February 2010 – Jenine Borowik, CIO, Australian Bureau of Statistics

  • Thursday 11 March 2010 – Julie Fursman, National Manager, Centrelink

  • Thursday 8 April 2010 – Nerida Gill, 2009 WICked Woman of the Year, Director of Admin Bandit

Each speaker’s story is very different so it should be an interesting series of talks.

WIC’s exceptionally popular annual HOT Breakfast look at the future of technology on all sorts of aspects of daily life, work and the environment..

For those of you not familiar with the HOT Breakfast Series, the aim is to enable you to:

  • Enjoy a HOT Breakfast, while you
  • Hear a HOT Speaker, talk about an
  • Exciting HOT topic.

WIC meetings are held at , The Hall, University House, ANU

7.15 for 7.30am start finishing at 8.30am.

I encourage you to register for the whole series if you can, but if not, come along to the session that seems most relevant to your career. Registration details are on the WIC events section of the website.

8 things you didn’t know about me

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 21 December, 2007 in about me, passion and inspire. 6 Comments

My friend Matt recently blogged about Luis Suarez and that he has written a list of eight things you didn’t know about him. It’s a meme, where the rules seem to be pretty straight forward:

  1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
  2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself
  3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names
  4. Let them know they’ve been tagged

So, I have taken up the challenge and here is my list of things you may not know about me:

  1. I was born in the Bris Vegas (Brisbane Qld) and am the middle child, but I am the oldest girl
  2.  My parents were both teachers so that prolly explains why i have way too many Degrees and a Masters as the importance of education was a key theme in my family. I continue to learn and seek knowledge so I guess Mum and Dad did something right :)
  3. I have travelled the world but mainly for work so I am trying to rectify things and start travelling as a tourist and taking my time to see the real cities (and not just the hotel conference facilities) and gain a better understanding of the history and the people.
  4. I am accidentally in Canberra but have found great friends and rewarding and challenging  work to do even though it has meant a big career shift for me.
  5. I have known great love in my life and am loved :) I am just a hopeless (hopeful) romantic.
  6. My Dad died when I was too young to appreciate his brilliance and amazing talents. He was not the kind of guy you noticed (as he was always in the background organising and supporting). He was a gentle, quite soul that was happy to let others shine and was very proud of his children’s achievements.
  7. I come from a very sporty family. We all played Tennis to a high level. At school I also played netball, volleyball, hockey, softball and in my spare time, athletics. I still play netball competitively 3 times a week.
  8. I have two wonderful children and I just hope that I am a good Mum and am always there for them when they need support and love. I love them unconditionally.

The people I’d love to know more about are:

  1. Julia Gillard — It’s great for young women to have an  inspirational role model in government and I hope she can live up to this expectation.
  2. Matthew Hodgson — My best friend who constantly challenges me to do great work and be a better person. He is also a bit of a KM (knowledge management) guru so I have lots to learn from Matt and he is the most passionate presenter you will ever see.
  3. Donna Maurer — I have only just gotten to know Donna recently on a personal level and have always respected her professionally. I look forward to getting to knwo her better.
  4. Andrew Boyd — He is one of my friends who has encouraged me to blog. He has a lot of ideas and cares about others.
  5. Allison Denny-Collins— She is very knowledgeable in HRM and has a very level head on her shoulders. 
  6. Caroline Elton — She was my good friend back at Pharmacia and has been overseas for ages and is now moving back to Sydney so we have lots of catching up to do.
  7. Helen Mirrem — I just think she is a fascinating woman, a great actress and have always admired her choice of gritty roles. 
  8. David Beckham — He seems to be genuine and down to earth despite his high profile and a lot of Australian sportsmen could learn from his example.

Take up the challenge. Write some random facts about yourself.