BCS North London Branch Chair's Letter

Chair's Letter

Letter from the Chair - Dalim Basu - December 2020

BCS NLB – for IT Knowledge-sharing, Collaboration & Professionalism Today and Tomorrow!

PANDEMIC - what a year it’s been! Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and its sad consequences, 2020 has seen unprecedented disruption, unforeseen transformation, unpredictable changes, accelerated adaption of remote working practices, and innovative delivery – and it’s not over yet!

But despite many challenges, we managed to deliver another great year of interesting, informative and popular North London Branch events focused on the worlds of IT and IT professionalism!

This letter outlines what we’ve been doing during this year of contemplation, self-isolation, mutual care and looking after others for the good for society. You’ll see some of our plans for the future, and how you can participate and benefit. I have also listed our 2020 events and webinars. These (and videos in our Library of Videos) include ideas about adapting to challenges of new work environments and changing world, and making use of ‘disruptive’ technologies.

Since I was elected Chair of London Central Branch in October 2019, we have increased collaboration between these two great BCS member groups for mutual benefit, and new opportunities for you to support us and the BCS of the future.

>Past events, sponsorship and support: Our NLB events (listed later) are helping raise participation with BCS activities from a wider IT community. This year our events have all been free-entry ones, with focus on high-profile topics, high-profile speakers and support of BCS core aims to ‘make IT good for society’. Until March we had ‘in-person’ events at BCS London. We then collated our play-on-demand Library of Videos (LoV) and sent LoV video links via frequent ‘Seen IT?’ emails to our members. From July we produced live webinars for our members plus play-later-on-demand LoV videos.

See ‘Past Events’ on the NLB website for lists of 20 years of NLB events to March 2020, plus collaborations with external organisations and other BCS groups. Lots of great feedback from organisations, presenters and attendees who appreciated NLB value and benefits – thank you!

>Ideas for the future: We’d like to improve our use of social media (especially LinkedIn), marketing and publicity. If you have skills in these areas and would like to help, please email dalim.basu@bcs.org. Also let me know your recommendations about great presenters and interesting, entertaining topics for future NLB events.

2020-2021 Plans [mostly with BCS London Central Branch)

Planned Activity	Additional Comments
1. Marketing & Publicity	Increased focus on publicising group activities and reach out to wider audiences.
2. Innovation	Increase use and monitoring of social media for marketing/advertising etc. Initiatives with London innovation hubs.
3. Networking	Webinars & other activities to help BCS members network with others, mentoring etc.
4. Collaboration	Increased collaboration with NLB, other BCS groups, and other organisations.
5. Education	Initiatives about jobhunting, soft skills, mentoring, new technologies. Work with academics, seniors, early careers.

>Teamwork: The driving team behind the success and popularity of our activities is the NLB committee of enthusiastic part-time volunteers - plus the support of many BCS staff and other helpful people. The Committee at December 2020 includes Dalim Basu (Chair), Patrick Roberts (our ‘Rock’ managing Website, Publicity, Secretary and Treasurer functions) and Maureen Childs (Diversity Officer) plus committee helpers. We have room for more good helpers who can contribute to NLB success!

>Your NLB: Your involvement is important. We hope you have enjoyed the ‘success story so far’ of our group. Our ambitions for next year present challenges for our small team of volunteers. Please let us know if you would like to join us and help assist your branch to be even more successful.

We look forward to seeing you and your colleagues at many future activities of the dynamic North London Branch - a good environment for learning, networking and helping to make IT good for Society.

We welcome and enjoy collaboration with others, so If you’re a member of another BCS group or external organisation, why not introduce us and see if we can work together? We appreciate your support!

Come and join us - let’s celebrate the future!

Dalim
Dalim Basu FBCS, CITP, CISA, CRISC, PRINCE2, BSc. Hons (London)
Chairman, BCS North London Branch