NECA has announced that for the first time it will be hosting an educational session at the 2017 Integrate show in conjunction with its cabler registrar, Australian Cabler Registration Service (ACRS).

The 2017 Integrate show will be held in Melbourne from Tuesday 29 August until Thursday 31 August.

NECA’s session, titled ‘Disruption may be the name game in today’s fast-paced technological world but could we minimise the pain?’ will take place on Wednesday 30 August from 10:30am-12noon.

In this session NECA will invite integrators and end-users to share the challenges they face when sourcing and working with electricians.

NECA says that because the electrician is often the last person to be brought into the process, they regularly have to deliver bad news to either the integrator or the end-user in regards to the compatibility or applicability of the proposed components. NECA would like to open up the debate as to how this process could be improved to allow the electrician to bring his or her full set of skills and expertise to the table earlier in the process.

“This is a great opportunity for NECA to showcase the added-value a qualified electrical contractor with smart building experience can bring to the table,” says NECA chief executive Suresh Manickam.

NECA will be joined in this Q&A session by Philips, Siemens, Gerard Lighting, Liveability and CSIRO, which are all active in the smart building and home automation world.

“We think this will be a very informative debate and one where we can all learn from discussing the challenges we face in this fast-paced changing environment.  We hope to see both NECA members and non-members at the show and in particular at our panel, which is chaired by Glenn Platt of CSIRO,” says Suresh.