SHARE YOUR STORIES COMPETITION
Thank you so much for sharing your awesome stories about the profession and the Institute! You can browse through some great moments below.
HERE ARE YOUR STORIES!
"The rapid growth of the Institute since 2000 means that Fellows don't have the same opportunity to become involved in Institute affairs. I believe the number of Fellows in the Institute of Actuaries of Australia and New Zealand in 1960 would have been about 100, mainly employed by the 6 "mutuals" in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1965 I was one of only 3 people to qualify as Fellows of the Faculty, (London) Institute and Society, in the southern hemisphere. All were resident in Sydney, becoming FIA. All were elected to Council subsequently, two going on to become President. By 1972 we held the Hon Sec of the NSW Branch and of the Institute proper as well as serving on several committees. Monthly meetings were held in the NMLA and AMP and were well attended by both Fellows and students so we got to know most in our respective cities.
The 1984 Congress was widely agreed to be the best ever. The Finns learnt from our organisation with only Australian wines served in Helsinki and Australian folk songs played on the trains to the Aida concert.
The Alice Springs Convention was the unlikely setting for the establishment of the current world body at which Cathy Prime was elected President..."
— Story thanks to Robin C.
"The profession has had a number of ground breaking members or associated individuals who did work outside the usual focus areas and it would do not any harm to let potential recruits, and recent Fellows, Associates etc know about them.
Some examples I can think of are:
Edmund Berkely: The link between mathematical logic and computing was in motion a few years before Turing published his legendary paper. A trip over to Bell Labs in July of 1941 exposed him to Claude Shannon’s work with telephone switches and logic gates. Berkeley spent some time and effort trying to get either his employer (Prudential) or Bell Labs itself to apply this concept to the architecture of the tabulating machines he relied on. Repeatedly thwarted by corporate bureaucrats, Berkeley eventually left insurance to work for Howard Aiken at Harvard’s Computation Laboratory on Mark I and Mark II.
Kenneth Andrews: Kenneth Arrow was a Nobel Prize winning micro-economist who studied to be an actuary before taking up economics. A lot of his work involved risk and he was one of the few economists who recognized the role of the insurance sector in the economy.
Victoria Grossack: Author of numerous books, including well rated novels."
— Story thanks to Rodney L.
"The Famous Finity Graduation Kaftans (although there may well be a better photo)!"
— Submitted by Martin M.