Here's a quick weekly update from ITP CEO Paul Matthews
It's Friday already! It certainly seems to come around fast on the short weeks.
This week we had the ITP National Board Meeting on Wednesday, with a review of progress against the Annual Plan for the year and a bunch of other matters.
Operationally, most of the focus of the last 2-3 months has been on ITx Rutherford, Tahi Rua Toru Tech (and the 10 regional finals), the APEC/SEARCC Regional Skills Project (see below), the review of ICT Qualifications, and a heap of "business as usual" activities.
It's also great to see a steady increase of ITP professional members this year, increasing 9% so far in 2019. That's 9% net - so over and above attrition - and the number of Chartered IT Professionals and Certified Technologists has also increased at a similar level, which is awesome.
123Tech Regional Winners
As mentioned last week, we've just completed 10 regional 123Tech finals events to find the regional winners across New Zealand at the various levels of the challenge.
28 teams of students from schools across New Zealand will be coming to Wellington on the 5th December for the Tahi Rua Toru Tech National Finals at TSB Arena - we can't wait!
You can see all Regional Winners here
We've had thousands take part in 123Tech this year and a massive congratulations to all teams who participated - it's great to see the programme continue to grow year-on-year.
Show off your wares at the 123Tech National Finals Expo
Speaking of the National Finals, we're hosting the finals and a tech expo in the afternoon of 5th December at TSB Arena in Wellington. This is going to be huge - the top school teams from across the country will be through, as well as other school groups and the public, and we're looking for more companies and others who want to join us and show off some of what makes our industry great.
If you're keen to come along and run some demos or show off some cool tech, or want a little more info, drop Gina from our team a note. Help us show the next generation why our industry is the most interesting, challenging and rewarding!
New ITP Corporate Partners
As well as the excellent growth in professional membership this year, we're seeing more and more companies come aboard as ITP Corporate Partners.
We're a professional body so we primarily focus on the people working within our sector. The ITP Corporate Partner Programme gives staff of Partners access to some of our tools and resources, plus shows a strong commitment to the development of the tech profession.
A big welcome to these Partners, who joined the ITPNZ Partner Programme over the last month or so:
- Caduceus Systems Ltd
- Dasudian Technologies (overseas Partner)
- Ministry of Justice
- Manawanui Support Ltd
- Advanced Management Systems
- Yoobee Colleges
If you're interested in becoming an ITP Partner, drop us a note or check out our website. We'd love to have you onboard.
APEC/SEARCC Regional Skills Initiative
As mentioned previously, I travelled to Seoul in Korea last month to help lead a workshop on an initiative to recognise skills across the 21 APEC economies.
APEC, or Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, is the inter-governmental forum and trade organisation in the Pacific Rim region. Member economies are the United States; Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Canada; Chile; China; Hong Kong; Indonesia; Japan; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; The Philippines; Russia; Singapore; Republic of Korea; Chinese Taipei [Taiwan]; Thailand; and Viet Nam.
The project is developing and promoting a "Common ICT Skills Recognition Framework" within the Asia-Pacific Region, then utilising this to enable (for example) the recognition and transfer of skilled workers across economies. As well as supporting the overall objectives of the project, our focus is on supporting the underlying framework (SFIA), and the recognition of CITPNZ/CTech and equivalent certifications within the region.
In addition, part of the project is creating a "turn-key" solution for developing countries to build a profession, including certifications based on SFIA. As well as a great opportunity to contribute back to developing the profession across the pacific rim, this enables opportunities for ITP and others to support this development directly, through APEC.
A core Steering Group has been established made up of representatives from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Chinese Taipei and Sri Lanka, with participation from other countries as needed.
The workshop was a success and had a high level of engagement of participant economies, with a very good Q&A session at the end. We also attended other APEC TEL sessions and helped socialise and integrate the project into other activities occurring during the week.
SEARCC (our regional federation of ICT professional bodies) and the Project Steering Group also met during the week to discuss general SEARCC business, and to map out the next steps for the project. This includes the formulation of Working Groups to undertake some of the detail work and there will be an opportunity for some members to get involved with this.
This is a really important project for us with big benefits for all participating economies, including New Zealand. We'll keep you updated as the project progresses.
Fright of the week
Goes to you, when you realise that it's less than 8 weeks until Christmas! Eek.
Have a good weekend.
by Paul Brislen, Editor
Happy birthday to the TIN report - 15 years of data and what a bumper year we've had. It was released this week and shows some great results.
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