From tomorrow there are 32 days until Christmas. How do we know? Because we counted. Just another service brought to you by Newsline. We also provide a run-down of the week in NZ tech, here it is.
What has IITP been up to?
Lots of planning this week, with plans progressing on the 2014 conference (announcement soon, but keep 8-10 October 2014 clear in your diaries!), and the work programme for next year, ahead of next week's National Council strategic planning session.
The Institute has also been working on plans for additional student activities for 2014. With a number of IITP student chapters on NZ campuses and strong interest for more, we've been working on how we can best grow our student network and successfully plug this into the profession and industry. We'll have some great opportunities to get involved soon.
Codeworx Challenge
IITP CEO Paul Matthews also joined Orion Health's Gareth Cronin and HP's Raewyn Hudson as the judging panel for the inaugural Codeworx Challenge on Thursday this week, working through the 21 entries from secondary students around New Zealand. And boy, was it a tough gig.
Codeworx is a programme put together by Orion Health, with Orion gifting hundreds of Raspberry Pis to students across the country. The best thing about the Challenge is its simplicity; the rules were simple: use a Raspberry Pi to solve a real world problem, and the extent of imagination, research, planning and execution from some teams blew us away. The Institute is proud to be a partner of the Codeworx Challenge and winners will be announced on Dec 1.
ICT-Connect winding down for 2013 - big plans for 2014
ICT-Connect, the Institute's in-school outreach programme for IT Professionals, is wrapping up what has been a hugely successful year. The final numbers are being tallied, but it looks like the programme got in front of over 30,000 secondary students in 2013 introducing them to the opportunities of a future in software and IT.
Our huge thanks again to the more than 40 companies and other organisations who financially support ICT-Connect making it a reality, and especially to our three Premier Partners Orion Health, Datacom and Potentia.
Here's Greg Hunt from Equinox presenting to a smaller group at Wellington East Girls College last week:
The programme is making a huge difference in the schools participating. We now have the processes running very smoothly and are looking to increase the exposure to 50,000+ students next year.
Check out the full ICT-Connect update next week, in a week-long Education Special edition of TechBlog and Newsline.
Back on the block
If you had a spare chunk of spectrum, what would you do with it? That was the question facing ICT Minister Amy Adams following the 700HZ spectrum auction last month, when 5MHz (paired) remained on the table. Telecom bought 15MHz, Vodafone bought 15MHz and 2degrees bought 10MHz and asked Adams if she could put the leftover 5MHz aside until they could afford it.
But Adams said no to 2degrees' and instead that 5MHz (paired) goes back on the block next Tuesday with a reserve price of $22 million.
The wanna-be second international cable Hawaiki put out another press release this week announcing it has chosen a landing site in the US and had signed contracts with US company CoastCom and Tillamook Lightwave for a cable landing station.
On the face of it this is progress, but will the cable actually go ahead? Two respected telco journos disagree. Tom Pullar-Strecker from the Dominion Post gives the project a 50/50 chance, while over at the National Business Review, Chris Keall says "unlikely". We certainly hope he's wrong.
Last weekend Otago University lecturer and Radio NZ tech commentator Erika Pearson led an Australia-NZ text hack, also known as a book sprint. The goal was to create an online text book that is free, using open source tools and publishing licenses. Pearson says the text hack took place virtually, with participants from Christchurch, Palmerston North, Auckland and Adelaide 'beaming in' via tools like Hangouts, used collaboration tools like Drive and Doodle, and publication tools like Wordpress.
You might think that Chorus had enough on its hands with the government snooping into its financials, an alliance of consumer groups and ISPs crying foul over its copper network pricing, and stockbrokers getting nervous about it share price. But no, someone had to go and call into questions its Gigatown promotion - the year-long competition which aims to boost excitement about the Ultra Fast Broadband project.
It's time for Chorus to call in Jean Claude Van Damme. He knows what it takes to create a viral social media campaign. This Volvo advert starring the 'Muscles from Brussels' was only posted last week and it has already clocked over 40 million YouTube views:
It's a bumpy road ahead for the telecommunications industry, according to TUANZ CEO Paul Brislen, who spoke at the Association of Local Government Information Management (ALGIM) conference in Taupo earlier this week.
The following is based on his presentation to the audience of local government IT managers and CIOs.
Institute of IT Professionals CEO Paul Matthews recently completed a trip to Chile, in South America, to look at Health IT in the region. The trip was part of an Executive MBA programme with the University of Auckland and his group uncovered some significant opportunities for kiwi Health IT companies.
Welcome news today that a Government Chief Privacy Officer is to be appointed, who will oversee privacy and security issues across all government agencies.
The IITP National Council will meet later this month to, amongst other things, elect the IITP President and Deputy President for 2014.
Thus the Council is now calling for nominations for the role of President and Deputy President. Are you interested in leading the strategic direction of the Institute?
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