2021 was an incredible year. Of course, there were challenges, but we also achieved some amazing things and saw our clients grow and thrive. We’ve recapped some of our favourite moments from the big year that was 2021 at aXcelerate. 

#1 We grew stronger as a team

Bridge to Brisbane – supporting Lifeline Australia

The aXceleracers ran the 10km and 4.5km races at Bridge to Brisbane to support Lifeline Australia. We chose Lifeline Australia as our charity to support, as their exceptional work in supporting mental health is crucial in these challenging times. We’re proud to have raised $1360 for Lifeline Australia. 

Client Forum

Katie and Amina hosted an online Client Forum in May and got to chat with many of you online about aXcelerate. They covered aXcelerate system updates, our Learning Plans feature (which was released shortly after the Forum), our new Work-based Learning feature (now in Open Beta for all Turbo clients), functional and usability enhancements, and a Q&A. We can’t wait to host in-person Client Forums again soon and see all of your lovely faces hopefully this year.

Velg’s National VET Conference

We attended Velg’s National VET Conference with our Extended Reality training software partners Black6 Labs. It was amazing to see many of our clients and industry friends in person again, and to watch everyone trying out Black6’s flight assessment VR simulator integrated with aXcelerate.

‍

#2 We welcomed new leadership

Meet David O’Rourke – our Chief Executive Officer. You’re probably familiar with Dave by now – maybe you read his welcome article, his answers to our ten fast facts, or you may have even met him at Velg’s National VET Conference back in September last year. Dave started with us in mid 2021, and has been leading the way since then, with big plans for aXcelerate in 2022. 

‍

Meet Dale Watkinson – our new Chief Operating Officer. Dale comes from a background in project and product management, and has come to aXcelerate with a wealth of knowledge and expertise to guide our development teams.

Meet Jane Thomson – our new Marketing & Sales Manager. Jane has joined us with passion and expertise in communications, growth and ensuring everyone knows how to get the highest level of value out of aXcelerate. 

#3 We released many new features and product improvements

We rolled out hundreds of new features and product improvements in 2021. Here’s just a few highlights: 

• We released Learning Plans, adding to the breadth of our comprehensive Learning Management System
• We released our Work-based Learning feature in open Beta, allowing our Turbo clients to start managing their work placements digitally
• We released our New Login Experience, to create a more secure and seamless login experience, giving users with multiple aXcelerate accounts the ability to connect them all to a single Global Account
• We improved our online assessment templates and workflows
• We now have support for full HTML in our templates
• Workflow Automated tasks now support emailing a contact regarding a booking or enrolment of another contact
• ...and so much more.
  

#4 We released new features – Learning Plans and WBL

We’re super proud of the two ‘big’ features we released in 2021 – Learning Plans and Work-based Learning (WBL).

Learning Plans

Trainers and Assessors are now able to create beautiful online lessons and assessments while controlling the flow of the learner experience.

With Learning Plans, you’re able to guide your learners step by step to get competent in specific units and qualifications. Learning Plans gives your educators complete oversight of the class, with a combination of self-driven learning and schedule-based progression.

WBL

You can now make paper-based logbooks a thing of the past with our new Work-based Learning feature. Your learners can use their own devices to take photos and videos of evidence on the job while recording skills and capturing hours in the workplace with our WBL learner app. The WBL feature also allows you to simplify supervisors’ work placement experience, including easier evidence approval and marking of attendance. Your admins and trainers will save time when reviewing logbooks, checking attendance and viewing everything related to a learner's experience all in one place.

#5 We celebrated wins

HEART Awards

The quarterly HEART Awards are a chance to celebrate the achievements and efforts of those team members who have gone above and beyond in their roles. 

Employee of the year – Mark Gilmore

Many of you may know our Manager of Customer Success Mark from the support he’s provided over the years to many of our clients. In 2021, Mark excelled as Manager of Customer Success, not only leading the Customer Success team to achieve a high standard of support, but also leading key implementation projects and much more. We are extremely fortunate to have Mark on our team, and wholeheartedly congratulate him for this achievement. 

#6 We welcomed new aXcelerators in 2021

We’re excited to introduce you to… 

• David O’Rourke – Chief Executive Officer
• Dale Watkinson – Chief Operating Officer
• Jane Thomson – Marketing & Sales Manager
• Jamie Zin – Videographer
• Jodie Fairhall – Digital Marketing Specialist
• Bridie Manning – Office Coordinator 
• Ian Usher – L&D Strategy and Implementation Leader
• Brenden Carr – Customer Success Team Leader
• Mark Cesare – Client Engagement Manager
• Alyssa Sherwell – Customer Success Representative 
• Ashleigh Hendy – Customer Success Representative
• Ryan Stedman – Customer Success Representative 
• Cameron Goodchild – Customer Success Representative 
• Bernard Wallace – Onboarding Consultant
• Kim Nguyen – Product Designer
• Christopher Chapman – User Experience Designer
• Erik Lan – Developer
• Lena Stockwell – Developer
• Roland Winter – Senior Developer
• Santosh Sai Sharan – Onboarding Assistant (Data Migration) 
  

#7 – We focused on empowering women in the workplace with our Director Jules

aXcelerate has a commitment to supporting our female-identifying employees, and one of the ways we have done this in 2021 is through workshops with our Director Jules Verner-Mackay. 

Jules facilitated discussion around dealing with imposter syndrome – something we know is especially prevalent for women in professional environments – and understanding the psychology behind it. Jules also focused on assertiveness, strengthening confidence and defining actionable leadership goals. 

Take a look at a video from one of our lunch & learns here:

#8 – We’re ready to take on 2022

We’ve returned to aXcelerate refreshed and raring to go. We have a lot of plans and goals for this year, including full launch of our WBL feature and other exciting projects and improvements that will all be revealed in time. We can’t wait to see the amazing things you achieve in VET this year, and we hope to be there supporting you along the way. We hope everyone is staying safe and well.