Welcome from the new CORE executive for 2024:
Rachel Cardell-Oliver (President)
Morri Pagnucco (Vice President)
Andrew Luxton-Reilly (Treasurer/Secretary)
David Abramson (Immediate Past President)
Lin Padgham (Co-opted)

Thank you to David Abramson, immediate past-president, Alistair Moffat and Jian Yang for their long service on the executive.  Thank you also to Alison Farr who has been the CORE administrator for over 20 years.  Alison will be handing over during this year to Mehak Madan in the CORE admin role.   To contact us email admin@core.edu.au or exec@core.edu.au or the president rachel.cardell-oliver@uwa.edu.au 

The terms of reference for CORE include

• to provide a forum for those interested in computer science and information technology so as to stimulate discussion of relevant issues; and

• to promote co-operation and liaison with other groups and organizations which have related or complementary purposes and activities.

If you would like to get involved in policy and advocacy for Computer Science in Australia and New Zealand, or know of upcoming reviews that CORE should respond to, please contact the CORE president.

One of our advocacy partners is Science and Technology Australia (STA).  CORE offers scholarships each year for CORE members to attend STA's Science Meets Parliament conference.  You can read reports from SMP attendees here core.edu.au/science-meets-parliament-reports.  

Two working groups have recently prepared CORE submissions.  Professor Toby Walsh chaired a working group submission to the Australian Government's Senate Select Committee on Adopting AI. Professor John Grundy chaired a working group responding to the ARC Policy Review of the National Competitive Grants Program.  Thank you to the chairs and all members of these working groups.  The submissions have been circulated to the CORE members list for comments, approved by the Executive and are published on the CORE submissions web pages

In 2023 CORE signed an MOU with AMSI for cooperation in areas of mutual interest, such as submissions to government reviews relating to STEM teaching and research, and the STEM workforce including responses to the AMSI data science review and endorsement of AMSI's proposal for out of field maths teaching in schools 

The South Pacific Competitive Programming Association is an organisation that promotes and runs programming competitions throughout Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Students compete in regular practice competitions (SPARs), as well as sponsored contests and the Regional contests for the International Collegiate Programming Competition. Contests are run online, and student led discussions and tutorials are available after each contest.

This is a great way to engage keen computing and mathematics students who are eager to test their programming and problem solving skills against some of the best in the world. Please help promote these contests to students, and the association would be very happy to hear from any faculty who are interested in running training sessions or developing contest materials. There is a flyer attached with information on the SPAR contests, or you can sign up for email updates at https://sppcontests.org/news/, or email southpacificicpc@gmail.com if you have any questions.