09 March 2021
Team discussing ideas while working on laptops at table

This week’s blog post celebrates International Women’s Day (IWD) 2021 which was yesterday, Monday March 8th, and the progress we have seen in this space over the past year. 

Inspirational leaders

In 2020-21, we featured a range of inspiring women and industry colleagues in our blog posts at afilias.com.au, from Suzanne Mitchell, GM of Marketing at GoDaddy Australia to Jayce Yeo, Regional Director at CSC APAC to Rosemary Sinclair, CEO at .au Domain Administration. These leaders have a significant role in supporting not only business, marketing and other industry innovations, but the principles of inclusion and equality too.

In January this year Suzanne Mitchell shared her thoughts on digital marketing trends predicted for 2021 with her insight that first-party would drive changes towards smarter marketing and an uplift in personalised customer engagement. This advice was originally sourced from CMO Australia, and was listed as their first prediction, emphasising the significance and immediacy of such an innovation in today’s marketing landscape. 

In September 2020, we spoke to Rosemary Sinclair about her background in the communications industry, her views on direct registration and overall vision for auDA. Rosemary shared her thoughts on the power of stakeholder engagement in shaping the Australian internet community and how having an online presence is more important than ever for small businesses, highlighting her priorities as an industry leader. 

Later in September 2020 we published a post after listening in on a webinar discussing domain security best practices, featuring Bruce Tonkin, COO at auDA, Ram Mohan, COO at Afilias and Jayce Yeo, Regional Director APAC at CSC. These speakers demonstrated their expertise on the topic of domain security, with Jayce reminding attendees of public instances that have occurred within Australian Government institutions that could easily happen to anyone who doesn’t have the correct precautions in place.

A balanced approach 

In last year's International Women's Day post we wrote about how industry events are striving to achieve a more balanced approach, and although the vast majority of events have moved online in the past year, this is something that has not been forgotten. An example of this is NetThing, Australia’s own Internet governance forum, to be held later this year (dates are looking to be in October 2021). I asked Bronwyn Mercer, Chair of NetThing 2021 about the topic of diversity being a key area of focus for the event:

“Last year we had an incredible panel who shared their insights on the topic of censorship and freedom of expression online, and how it impacts minority and marginalised groups. Representation across multiple dimensions (including gender, age, culture and life experience) is critical to ensure that NetThing captures the broad range of perspectives on Internet issues facing Australians today. Diversity is a key priority for NetThing in 2021 and I am really looking forward to hearing some new voices contributing to the discussion."

The power of knowledge and inclusion

Afilias Australia is proud to be involved in a community that is full of passionate, inspirational leaders such as Suzanne, Rosemary, Jayce and Bronwyn whose perspectives highlight the power of knowledge and inclusion and offer a balance in representation and diversity. We are looking forward to watching how this space progresses into 2021 but from what we can see so far, it is certainly on a positive trend.

Have a question, comment or idea for a future blog post? Email us at blog@afilias.com.au today.