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33% off EOFY Sale - IT Professionals Association Membership - Now $110, Tax Deductible

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33% off EOFY Sale - IT Professionals Association Membership - Now $110, Tax Deductible
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AssociatedLTRS-80 on 27/06/2018 - 14:16 itpa.org.au (178 clicks)

Sign up or renew for 12 months membership before July 1 at the reduced rate of $110, down from $165, plus $30 joining fee for new members. This is tax deductible if you work in the IT industry.

Why join ITPA? ITPA is a non-profit organisation established to advance the understanding of ICT matters within the community, corporate and government sectors in Australia. Our member services include:

  • Discounts including on tax returns, purchases at AusPCMarket, coffee beans, and Dimension Data training (the discount on just one course can easily amount to more than you pay in membership)
  • One of the best local forums for your IT questions, ask and you'll receive quick and helpful responses from other members
  • Portable IPv6 allocation - IP addreses you can take with you if you change ISP
  • Public comment on issues relevant to the IT Industry, ITPA and its members, eg calling out Bill Morrow for his claims about gamers on the NBN
  • Recognition of ongoing professional development through our Certified Practicing Member program.
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closed Comments

  • dealspider on 27/06/2018 - 14:34
    +1

    What are the main differences between this and ACS (Australian Computer Society)?

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 14:51
      +3

      ITPA and the ACS are both industry groups for IT Professionals.

      Without commenting on what the ACS (or any other similar groups) offer - ITPA is a member representative organisation, offering its members a variety of services including making public comment on matter of importance to our members, facilitating communication between members, offering discounts on goods and services via supporting organisations, and offering a number of member services such as IPv6 address allocations, DNS services, a continuing professional development program, etc. We believe that our offering is compelling at the price point it is offered at - but are always looking to improve the services and number of services offered - the full list is here: https://www.itpa.org.au/member-services/

      ITPA is specifically a representative organisation for individual IT workers - we do not accept corporate memberships or promote corporate interests of partner organisations.

  • SnoozeAndLose on 27/06/2018 - 14:41

    is this being recognised by the government? i.e. using the status for immigration?

    do you guys certify work experience to use for immigration like ACS do?

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 14:58
      +1

      No.

      ITPA is not in the business of vetting immigration applicant skills or experience, and this is specifically not an area that ITPA has any interest in participating in.

      ITPA is extremely happy to help to facilitate skill improvement (we have a CPD program to recognise continued professional development), and work with a number of education providers to help our members to improve their capabilities, but we are not in the business of providing skills assessment services.

  • Rollins on 27/06/2018 - 15:01
    +2

    Will you lobby the government so you can hijack the certification process and force all IT workers to be members of your organisation for the betterment of the Industry and to protect industry from the 100's of rogue IT operators ?

    Asking for a friend.

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 20:21

      I believe I answered this above - but no, this is not something we have any plans on doing, and would strongly oppose any such scheme.

      We do not believe that our industry is served by forcing workers through a certification scheme that would be out of date nearly as soon as it were set up - the IT industry is too broad and moves too quickly for such a scheme to be viable.

      We would rather assist our members in improving their skill levels through a variety of services - ITPA members get discounts with training organisations including Dimension Data Learning Services, we work in association to present free online short courses to both our members and the industry in general, and aim to assist our members in tracking their education and learning through our CPD program.

      We'd rather see our members differentiating themselves in the open market than force people through hoops that may or may not be relevant to the jobs they're applying for.

  • dangercharlie on 27/06/2018 - 16:22

    ACS also provides umbrella insurance cover for members for Public Liability and Professional Indemnity.
    Applies for members earning less than $100k though.

    Useful for smaller contractors doing work with Govt etc.
    https://www.acs.org.au/professionalrecognition/ict-liability…

    • asa79 on 27/06/2018 - 16:53
      +3

      If you need it you will be earning more then that

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 21:49

      There are undoubtably services that the ACS offers its members that we do not, and vice versa. The same can be said of other industry associations.

      We have an offering which we believe is worth what we ask for it. In the end, it's up to each individual to make their own decision on where (if anywhere) to spend their money on industry association leadership.

  • YellowDieselGolf on 27/06/2018 - 16:28
    +1

    Any members here? I stopped renewing my ACS membership as I got no value from it.

    • Maverick-au on 27/06/2018 - 19:11
      +1

      Yes, been a member for a long time and have found value in it plus it's not the ACS.

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 21:51

      I have been a paid member of ITPA (and SAGE-AU before it) since the 8th of June 2001.

      I've served as President since 2012. Like all of our board roles, this is a volunteer position. I'm a member because I believe the organisation is important in our industry, and serve as a volunteer because I realise that organisations like ITPA don't run themselves. :)

  • asa79 on 27/06/2018 - 16:52
    -1

    where's the value?

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 21:06

      Membership is normally $165 a year (less than the cost of a cup of coffee a week). Until 1st July 2018, we've discounted this by 33% to $110.

      Services provided to members are listed on the following page:

      https://www.itpa.org.au/member-services/

      One of the services for financial members is discounts on a variety of goods and services. Details of the current offers are here: https://www.itpa.org.au/member-discounts/

      A single tax return via Astute Advisory group covers the discounted cost of membership. The discount available on DDLS training courses can be as much as $500 on a one-week course. Spend $500 via Duxtel on Mikrotik kit and you get $50 of your membership fee back.

      We are always working to add more discounts and more services to help our members.

      And aside from all that - your contribution of the cost of a cup of coffee a week helps ITPA to continue to advocate for IT workers and ensuring that a critical eye is cast over IT policy at all levels of government. You get to know that through your membership, you are contributing to the development of good IT policy in this country, for the good of our industry as well as society in general.

      In all that, I think there's substantial value.

  • asa79 on 27/06/2018 - 16:56

    a IPv6 isn't worth much at all

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 20:34

      Sorry, you're going to have to define "a IPv6" :)

      If by that you mean that a portable /48 IPv6 allocation isn't of much value, we respectfully disagree.

      Like it or not, IPv6 is coming. We believe that it's important for our members to understand how IPv6 will impact them in their professional lives, and as one of the tools to assist in this, have registered as an APNIC member and received a /32 allocation for ourselves which we then split into a /48 for each paid member. This can be used for self-education (it included 65,536 IPv6 subnets - plenty to learn with), or can, as ISPs start offering IPv6 services, be used by members for their Internet service requirements, allowing more complex network setups to be easily moved between ISPs without requiring the whole network be re-IP addressed (many people use NAT on IPv4 connections, which not only causes issues for some software, but is also really not useful from a security perspective, despite what many people may think).

      The Australian Internet industry as a whole is behind where we believe it should be with offering IPv6 services, and we also believe that by offering the IPv6 allocation, we're helping in our own little way to drive demand for IPv6 services, which will hopefully start to see wider offering of IPv6 connectivity.

      • asa79 on 27/06/2018 - 20:59

        There is going to be a lot more IPv6 addresses then IPv4 addresses, which means the value of IPv6 will be alot less then IPv4

        • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 21:10

          There are a lot more IPv6 addresses than IPv4, that's true - which is why we're not just offering a single IPv6 address, but rather 65,536 IPv6 subnets (or 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 individual IPs).

          You can do an awful lot with a /48. A decent sized business could easily run off one - $165 a year (at normal prices, $110 for a year for the next few days) is a stupidly cheap way to obtain what is effectively a permanent portable IPv6 allocation…

  • Gandalf the Thrifty on 27/06/2018 - 17:18
    +1

    What can you do for us IT professionals who need to wear business style clothes to work and can't wear casual messy like t-shirt, jeans and thongs to work?

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 20:46

      I resemble that remark (both parts, to a degree). :)

      I got my start in dial-up ISP helpdesk, and joined SAGE-AU (the ancestor of ITPA) when I was working as a Y2K rollout technician for a large media company. Since then I've moved up through the sysadmin ranks and into management.

      Not only does ITPA aim to assist members with helpdesk or sysadmin backgrounds, but we're also keen to work with developers, project managers, security professionals, data scientists, IT managers at various levels, and others - basically anyone who feels that they fit in the category of "IT Professional". The services we offer (and will be offering soon, there are additional services coming online) benefit members at all levels - the training discounts we offer through DDLS as an example (between 5% and 10% off IT training courses that are not just technical and run to up to $1000 a day). The Symantec VIP service we offer access to is useful for access to multiple systems (not just for sysadmins or developers). Members are eligible for discounted insurance products via one of our other partners, another partner offers discounted tax returns and financial services.

      If there are other services that people would like to see us offering, please feel free to reach out - we're more than happy to consider services that will benefit our members.

  • Anth0ny on 27/06/2018 - 19:54

    what can you do for protecting the IT industry in Australia now that almost every IT jobs has been outsourced?

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 20:56

      We have a proven record of comment on matters of importance to IT workers, particularly around job security.

      https://www.itpa.org.au/news/457-visas-for-it-support-roles-…
      https://www.itpa.org.au/news/skilled-visa-changes-dont-go-fa…
      https://www.itpa.org.au/news/shuffling-of-skilled-workers-vi…
      https://www.itpa.org.au/news/itpa-response-to-commonwealths-…

      Those were not only published on our website, but were released to media and covered on a number of sites (at various times, CIO Magazine, iTWire and ComputerWorld have carried our articles).

      We followed up some of our commentary with a FOI request to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, but had that rejected: https://www.itpa.org.au/news/immigration-rejects-itpas-457-f…

      We've published other articles that have been aimed at helping our members find and retain employment, including data on the Australian IT Industry in general:

      https://www.itpa.org.au/news/press-release-census-data-shows…
      https://www.itpa.org.au/news/press-release-wages-soaring-for…
      https://www.itpa.org.au/news/what-it-professionals-need-to-k…

      We also responded to the 2018 federal budget:

      https://www.itpa.org.au/news/itpas-response-to-the-2018-fede…

      Aside from the work done publicly, we've also directly approached various government departments, ministers and politicians with our concerns.

      • asa79 on 27/06/2018 - 21:00

        Comment isnt action.

        If you had some ability to make a difference like stopping filtering, or HFC etc then that would be worth it

        • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 27/06/2018 - 21:28

          Not commenting would absolutely the opposite of action.

          If you believe that informed public comment from an organisation with over 18,000 registered associate members doesn't have any influence on policy at all, then you may be right.

          If you believe that informed public comment doesn't contribute to meaningful debate, educating the industry, the public, politicians and business, you may be correct.

          And that's before you consider the direct non-public approaches that we've made at times on various issues

          We have seen a direct correlation (we're not claiming causation) between comment that we have made on issues and changes of policy or failure to put policy forward to parliament to become law.

          You mention filtering - it's a great example why organisations such as ITPA, and the public comments we make, are so important.

          Stephen Conroy's Internet filter was stopped almost entirely by severe public backlash against the filter and its implications. The filter became politically unpalatable - people like Conroy didn't suddenly realise that they were doing the wrong thing all along, they realised that they were going to be politically unpopular if they persisted with the plan).

          The public backlash was led by organisations such as EFA, Internet Australia, SAGE-AU and other organisations like ITPA - we showed that not only was the filter NOT going to achieve the stated goals, but that there were severe negative outcomes delivered by it, and that it was easily bypassed (I personally sat in the Ultimo studios and showed on the 7:30 Report how to connect to a VPN that completely bypassed the ABC's own Internet proxy and filter service - just as you'd have been able to do with Conroy's proposed filter).

          Unfortunately, some organisations (corporate and otherwise) supported the filter because it suited their agenda (be it commercial gain, perceived power and control, "sucking up" to government to gain favour for their own agendas, etc), and if it weren't for the thought leadership shown by the organisations who opposed it, the filter would have become law.

          HFC (and the Multi-Technology Mess that the NBN has become) - we are a persistent voice for reason here, based on the technical merit (or lack thereof) of the proposed solution. We have been early and loud in our criticism of poor decisions and inappropriate comment by those responsible for the NBN - and will continue to hold them to account where they get it wrong. Again - without groups like us, the vast majority of Australian would neither know better or care that they're having a second-rate service delivered to them.

          Australia needs organisations like ITPA. The Australian IT Industry needs organisations like ITPA. If you don't want to join us, that's fine - but I implore you join one of the industry associations who are trying to do something to improve the situation for workers in this industry, and for our society where technology is concerned.

  • Gandalf the Thrifty on 28/06/2018 - 17:16

    Do you have any views on AI replacing several IT positions in the coming years eg by 2020?

    • Associatedhudrob @ Information Technology Professionals Association on 28/06/2018 - 22:39

      That is an interesting question.

      AI, whilst it will undoubtably become powerful, is still very much in its infancy as a technology.

      AI replacing jobs is really not a lot different to machinery replacing jobs back during the industrial revolution. People opposed it, they predicted it was the end of employment for "blue collar workers", the Luddites went around smashing up industrial machinery in an effort to oppose it. Yet it happened, society didn't end, and without it, society would be in a substantially worse position today without it.

      After industrial machinery came computers - again, predictions were dire (or just weird - IBM saw a market for maybe 5 computers worldwide), and yet it is computers which are the reason IT workers have jobs today.

      Then along came the Internet - it still hasn't killed off all the things it was predicted it would kill - movies still get made, music is sold and played, books are read, most of us who game aren't rabid murderous sociopaths.

      AI will undoubtably change things. It will start slowly, it will take time to mature and find its place. Yes, some jobs will change, the point of value for workers in IT will adjuwt - but I don't see it being the end of IT work per se.

      How do we prepare ourselves for the change? Be prepared for it coming, assess where you'll be able to add value in the future, educate yourself as required, and be ready when the change occurs to ride the wave.

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