With my nearing retirement at the end of December, it is time to say goodbye to my valued colleagues. How quickly the years passed! After seven years, it is time for change and renewed energy.
Some of the highlights of my short sprint are:
- The introduction of process formalisation in IT service management, resulting in the institutional use of the Jira Service Management platform. My sincere gratitude and congratulations to Nobi, Marc-Allen, Courtney, Malanie, Ronel, Leanne and many more colleagues who helped to turn it into a success.
- The retirement of Inetkey, and the abundant availability of Internet capacity.
- The establishment of maturing service practices in the IT Division, like architecture, security, project and service management.
- The structural reorganisation of the IT Division to enable service continuity, portfolio management with increased focus on academic support, business systems renewal and service management.
- Infrastructure modernisation in the campus networks and building refurbishment, especially the Extended Learning Spaces project with state-of-the-art audio-visual technologies; and finally,
- ensuring business continuity with systems and technology during the COVID period (2020-2021).
Thank you for all your support and the stimulating challenges, especially my directors for their loyal support. I wish you all a thriving work environment, and success in all your endeavours!
My successor, Dr Denisha Jairam-Owthar, will be joining you in January 2022 as Chief Director of Information Technology. I have full confidence in her abilities, and believe that SU will benefit greatly from her leadership.
