When Migration Works - What Makes the Difference?
A candid panel discussion exploring real migration journeys, career progression, and what truly enables successful integration into South Australia’s tech and business landscape.
Member $0.00
Member-Concessional $0.00
Non-Member $15.00
Contact Event Organiser
About this event
Migration stories are often told through statistics - visa categories, workforce gaps, and economic impact. But behind every pathway is a personal journey shaped by resilience, opportunity, uncertainty, and determination.
This event brings together three expert panelists and industry leaders who have navigated the realities of building a career in Australia after migrating. Through open and practical discussion, we will explore:
-
The turning points that shaped their professional journeys
-
Barriers encountered - and how they were overcome
-
The role of networks, mentorship, and community
-
Skills alignment, requalification, and adapting to local industry expectations
-
What employers and institutions can do better
-
Practical advice for students and emerging professionals navigating similar pathways
This session is not about policy theory - it is about lived experience.
With a strong expected representation from students and early-career professionals, this discussion aims to provide clarity, encouragement, and practical insight for those seeking to build meaningful careers in South Australia’s technology and business sectors
Hosted by the ACS South Australia Branch at Torrens University Adelaide, this in-person panel will create space for authentic storytelling, thoughtful reflection, and audience engagement.
We look forward to welcoming a diverse cross-section of our community - from students and emerging professionals through to leaders and Fellows - for an evening of insight, connection, and shared learning.
Speakers
Seshnie Taylor is the Founder of Vocare, an Australian-owned CareTech company using AI and ML to help culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) professionals communicate with clarity and confidence in the workplace.
Speaking five languages (six if you count toddler), Seshnie is on a mission to make Australian workplaces more inclusive - one confident conversation at a time. She is particularly interested in the gap between what skilled migrants are currently doing and what they are truly capable of contributing when communication confidence is no longer a barrier.
With a background spanning education, startups, and her own lived experience as a migrant, Seshnie combines pedagogy with technology to build practical, measurable solutions. Vocare leverages proprietary datasets and locally stored Australian AI models to deliver speech clarity insights, terminology uplift, and measurable communication outcomes - particularly across regulated sectors such as Aged Care and NDIS. The impact extends beyond pronunciation: improved audit readiness, stronger compliance outcomes, reduced safety incidents, and better staff retention.
Seshnie believes clear speech builds credibility, confidence fuels contribution, and inclusive communication is a competitive advantage - not just a cultural aspiration.
When she’s not developing AI-driven pronunciation tools or delivering tailored workshops, spending time with her young family enjoying all the South Australia has to offer, chasing her “fluffy son" Alfie and quietly reshaping how Australia thinks about voice, talent, and belonging.
A chartered accountant by training, she never set out to build an organisation. She set out to protect her child. In 2019, after navigating the pain of trying to find dignified, culturally safe disability support for her daughter, Madeeha made a quiet but powerful decision. If the system could not offer what her family needed, she would help reshape it.
That decision became Care Assure.
What started as one mother’s resolve has grown into an award winning, values led movement in disability care across South Australia and Tasmania. Madeeha is widely recognised for reimagining what support can look like when people, culture, and compassion are placed at the centre. Her work has earned her recognition as Citizen of the Year, not simply for what she has built, but for how she has built it.
Originally from Pakistan, Madeeha’s story is also a powerful example of what becomes possible when migration is supported and embraced. Together with her husband, she has built businesses that not only deliver exceptional care outcomes but also create meaningful employment opportunities for local Australians and skilled migrants alike.
Madeeha’s impact also extends into migration and workforce development. Through Care Assure, she actively supports skilled migrants through the DAMA (Designated Area Migration Agreement) pathway, helping address critical workforce shortages in disability care. As an approved sponsor, she has created real opportunities for migrant professionals to build stable lives in Australia, while strengthening local communities and expanding culturally responsive support services.
Madeeha is a natural mentor and thought leader. She is known for lifting others as she rises, creating spaces where women, migrants, and people from diverse cultural backgrounds are not only included but empowered. Her teams reflect the world she believes in, one where care is personal, dignity is non-negotiable, and leadership is rooted in service.
That common experience of values driven leadership, systems thinking, and service beyond self has created a deep sense of alignment and mutual respect.
Grounded, generous, and visionary, Madeeha leads with empathy and courage. She is not just changing systems, she is shaping futures, reminding us that real leadership begins with care and grows through purpose.
Specialising in the delivery of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) workforce solutions to corporate and government clients across Australia. Her organisation was brought to life in life in 2016, driven by the purpose to solve the unacceptable unemployment rates among newly arrived refugees and migrants in Australia. Since then, she has led the customised design and delivery of employer-led recruitment, workforce development, and organisational capability solutions that strengthen inclusive workforce participation, improve employee retention, and support long-term workforce sustainability.
Operating in the niche space of corporate social responsibility, she specialises in cultural inclusion. She is widely recognised as a leading multicultural workforce and community development expert, creating economic and social impact solutions through partnerships with the corporate sector that maximise employment and skilling opportunities for refugees and migrants. This unique integrated service model combines workforce strategy, recruitment, learning and development, and organisational change to deliver measurable commercial, workforce, and social outcomes.
As the Founder and CEO, Carmen not only brought over 25 years’ experience working in refugee resettlement, training and employment but the passion from witnessing the firsthand experience of her mother, a migrant from the Philippines who was unable to pursue her profession due to a lack of overseas qualifications recognition. This is where her mantra “work lies at the core of human dignity” originated.
Carmen was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2024 Australia Day Honours List for her significant service to the multicultural community through diversity and inclusion advocacy and programs. She was also the first female appointed as the current Philippine Honorary Consul in South Australia in 2022, to not only serve her community but lead the facilitation of new international trade and economic partnerships.
This female social entrepreneur’s experience working in refugee and migrant resettlement, migration, community development, training and workforce strategy across the public, private and community sectors led her strong advocacy to lead a national first with the establishment of the SA Skilled Migrant Job Support Centre in Adelaide in March 2025, to date together with her team they have broken the ceiling for many skilled migrants to pursue their passion for their profession including in the ICT industry.
Carmen is currently appointed as a Board Member of the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority. She was listed on the 2023 Women’s Honour Roll in SA and received the Women in Innovation Award for Social Impact (2021), SA Governor’s Multicultural Award for Individual Outstanding Achievement (2020) and was listed as one of the Top 50 Small Business Leaders in Australia by Inside Business (2021). She continues to serve as a judge on the solstice Media 40Under40 Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders Awards having won the inaugural award for State Contribution in 2018 to mentor emerging business leaders. She says her most Important role is however ‘Life Manager’ for daughter Ashlee and son Cooper.
She has an MBA and a Bachelor of Arts Degree (International Studies: Public Policy and Languages). For more on Carmen Garcia visit her on LinkedIn.
Event Location
Event Terms & Conditions
Registration
- Payment in full is required the time of booking in order for the registration to be valid.
- To avoid disappointment, ensure you pay for your booking(s) before the registration closing date. Anyone that has not received a confirmation email will not be on the event attendance list and therefore will not be admitted to the event.
- Online registration ends at the time stated on the event details page.
Cancellation and Refund
All cancellations must be processed through the website, a refund will only be considered if it is at least 3 working days prior to the event.
Disclaimer
- ACS reserves the right to change the program at any time. Every effort will be made to ensure a program of equivalent standard and members are updated with changes.
- All dietary requirements are considered, however we cannot guarantee a 100% allergen free environment.
- ACS reserves the right to prohibit entry or eject any person from an ACS event based on behaviour deemed inappropriate by ACS staff, its agents and/or others working under its authority.
- Filming or streaming by attendees is not permitted. If an attendee is found to be doing so they will be asked to leave the event immediately and further action may be taken.
- Photography and/or filming may take place during this event, by accepting these terms you consent to this. Please let a member of ACS know if you do not want your picture taken.
COVID-19 Event Attendance Compliance
By registering to attend an ACS in person event you are agreeing to the below terms and conditions
- If an attendee is displaying flu or cold like symptoms in the days leading up to the event and therefore is not able to attend, ACS will refund the registration fee.
- If an attendee comes to an event and is displaying flu or cold like symptoms they will be asked to leave
- We ask all ACS members to respect the social distancing guidelines, if an attendee repeatedly disregards these guidelines, they may be asked to leave
- ACS reserves the right to cancel the event within 24 hours' notice if either the speaker or the event host has advised us that they are exhibiting flu or cold like symptoms
- All attendees must provide a valid phone number and email address to be contacted on if there is reason to notify about a possible COVID-19 exposure
Personal information collection notice
By registering for this event, you are providing personal information to the Australian Computer Society. In accordance with the ACS Privacy Policy, ACS collects personal information through registrations and attendances at its events for the purposes of:
- organising and providing the various professional development events held by the ACS (including for example, courses, conferences, seminars, workshops, launches);
- processing and managing event registrations (including catering for dietary requirements);
- maintaining event attendance records;
- contacting registered event guests with information in regard to the event and seeking post-event feedback;
- communicating with you to in relation to future events or ACS products, courses, services, promotions or other products or services that ACS reasonably thinks may be of interest to attendees;
- processing and responding to attendee inquiries; and
- conducting research to improve its events and better understanding needs.
If the required information is not provided, we or any involved third parties, may not be able to respond to you, update you, or provide appropriate services or events to you.
We may obtain personal information directly from you or from someone who registers for the event on your behalf. If you provide us with personal information about another person, you must do so only with their consent and agree to make them aware of this privacy notice.
ACS may share your personal information with third parties for the collection purposes noted above or as set out in our Privacy Policy, where it is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of our activities, or required by law.
When you register to participate in an overseas event, we may send personal information we collect overseas.
See our Privacy Policy at https://www.acs.org.au/privacy-policy.html for more information about our privacy practices.