Canberra is a city with bright minds and brilliant possibilities

Canberra is a city with bright minds and brilliant possibilities – as quoted from Canberra.com.au and I couldn’t agree more. A city where smart business leaders, courageous entrepreneurs and pioneering organisations can thrive and grow. We might be small in numbers and plenty in roundabouts but it doesn’t mean things don’t happen at DDLS Canberra. Our DDLS Canberra office has taken that mindset and executed three key initiatives to put DDLS Canberra on the map.

Initiative 1: Meeting Canberrans’ everyday needs As many of us would agree, we’re feeling that the year has kicked off and escaped us. Somehow we’re in February! Reflecting on the month that has been already, Canberra kicked off the year flying with free parking offered to any student attending a course, because we at the Canberra branch understand your needs. In 2018 we’ve tried to change things up and we’re embracing technology. We’re running more and more courses from the Canberra branch using DDLS Anywhere so that locals don’t have to miss out on a course that is being run out of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane – the experience allows Canberra people to be in the same classroom as the other cities from the comfort of being home-based!

Initiative 2: Extending the Cloud DDLS Canberra is excited to hear the news from Microsoft that they are extending the cloud to Canberra with the Canberra Data Centre’s Hume and Fyshwick facilities being the centre of the world as far as Azure is concerned. The two Azure regions are imaginatively named Australian Central 1 and 2. They will be connected to the ICON network that connects all Australian government agencies. (See a map here if interested). Microsoft is hoping that a data centre at the heart of our country’s capital will help to accelerate digital transformation across all levels of the public sector. The two new regions are coming on line in the first half of 2018. They will be capable of handling sensitive, unclassified data as well as protected data. DDLS has been preparing for this to happen for the last year with our Canberra-based trainers getting skilled up to deliver the skills government and public sector organisations alike need in Azure and Office 365. As the only Microsoft Gold Cloud Platform, Cloud Productivity and Gold Learning Partner in Australia, we’ve already helped hundreds of organisations on their move to Azure and we will shortly be hosting and delivering some training for Microsoft and its partners out of our Canberra office. Our next Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions course is running on 16 April in Canberra and there are some places left if you want to get a headstart on getting the team future-ready.

Initiative 3: Launching PP&C (Project Planning & Control) Sick of hearing about things being launched out of Sydney or Melbourne? Well, guess what? We’re launching the latest Project Planning international certification from the heart of our nation’s capital! Yes, it’s rare for Canberra to launch new products, so we’re changing things up. PP&C is an internationally accredited certification with APMG that allows you to manage your projects with structure and control. Everything we do these days is executed in a project so why not increase your learning and formalise your knowledge with this certification? This five-day PPC Combined Course is led by Laurie Bowman who is passionate about improving the professionalism of project planning and control. With over twenty years of experience in portfolio, program and project control, Laurie specialises in assisting professionals in the project management arena to achieve successful outcomes through training and coaching. To kick things off, Laurie will be presenting a webinar titled Project Planning and Control – Improving Project Performance on Wednesday 7 March. Don’t miss out on your chance to be first nationally to sit this certification, the course is commencing on 9 April.

I’m proud to be a Canberran and to pass that Canberra spirit back into the DDLS branch.

Maureen Thomas

Branch Manager, ACT