As ACS Women celebrated its tenth anniversary, there was time to reflect on the decade past but also to think about the future and the ongoing role for women in ICT.

A high-powered panel of speakers assembled at Sydney's Menzies Hotel to explore what that future might look like.

Sharon Dickson - ACS NSW vice chair between 2012 and 2014, and head of technology for intermediary distribution at QBE - posed the question: 'What's your vision for the role of women in the age of digital?'

She received four very different responses:

1. Learn adaptable skills

Digital Careers state manager John Westgarth's vision was to enable women to create "adaptable skill sets to respond to digital disruption".

He believed technology could have a major impact on society - "and it's through technology that smart empowered people will change some of the big things we need changed".

"So if I had a vision it would be about flexibility and strong skillsets that make people adaptable [in this new world]."

2. Embrace an entrepreneurial spirit

Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen, an academic and founder of Tech Girls Movement and Tech Girls are Superheroes, believed it was important to teach women confidence to "create your own future".

She cited Sara Price, a then 12-year-old who won last year's Australian Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero competition. Price created an app "which helps young people build self confidence and resilience". It sold 20,000 copies.

"This is our future," Dr Beekhuyzen said.

"Trying to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit is a really good thing. You don't have to align to structures that maybe don't fit with you and with the way you do things. You can create your own future."

3. Stay out of the box

UTS Lucy program director Bronwyn Holland's vision for women in the digital future was "access all areas".

"I think we get very much constrained by roles and by role stereotyping and I think we want to be able to dismantle the very many barriers there are to young people being able to translate their attitudes, achievement and creativity and interest into opportunity," she said.

"The messaging that I'm hearing about disruption and the flexible, cross disciplinary, adaptable, intelligence-driven paradigm that we're moving into is that, more than anything, it should give us the opportunity to transform the educational experience of young people and hook in to a better, more equitable, more sustainable future that we claim to aspire to."

4. Keep your eye out for opportunities

ACS director of policy & public affairs - and ACS Women sponsor - Athol Chalmers believed the digital age would create many opportunities that encouraged more women to participate in the ICT industry.

"There's going to be lots of new jobs created, there's going to be new industries and new companies," he said. "You've only got to look at things like Airbnb and Uber that were created in the digital age.

"I think the opportunity really is that women will be able to take advantage of the digital disruption opportunities that are there. Hopefully [these opportunities] will bring more women into the workforce and ICT".