panui 16th June
Ata mārie ITP members and supporters, The Australians continue to impress with their STEM workforce targets - and backing these up with government funded programmes - remember a couple of weeks ago their 1.2M tech jobs initiative. This week it’s their Defence Department who announced a 50% target for women employed into their STEM Cadetship programme - one they have been running as a pilot already and found “it received over 800 applications and hired 69 participants – 43% of whom were women, beating its initial target by 3%.” Better still they are doing this indefinitely! No 1 year of funding to run out.
I will be taking all of these insights from across the ditch into upcoming discussions with NZ Government officials who are tasked with helping to achieve our budget goal of 50% women in the digital technology workforce. The difference here is uncoordinated activities across government, a willingness with woeful funding - unlike the Australians - and a national educational provider / system that is heavily skewed towards trades. We need to become more connected up, more deliberate and coordinated in our efforts Aotearoa NZ, less vendor vested interest initiatives, more outcome focus - there are a cohort of us across government and industry focused on this but we need a coalition of the willing to join us!
Speaking of trades education. Te Pūkenga are restructuring and people are worried. In an email from Andrew McSweeney, Deputy CE responsible for Learner Employer Experience and Attraction to stakeholders today he says “The proposed changes are designed to improve the way that vocational education is provided in Aotearoa New Zealand.” He includes a link to the public facing consultation page, which basically says “A unified structure will remove expensive duplication and inefficiencies in the system” and that while 404 FTE’s will be losing their jobs there will be opportunities for redeployment but stops short of explaining what this means for teaching staff.
Rant over.
AI things this week
Both Peter and Brendan were inspired by AI this week. Peter’s editorial leads with AI - an update on the EU regulation I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, as promised it has been developed and now passed in draft within a matter of weeks. This foundational piece of legislation (for all of us) takes a risk based approach, rather then restricting the use of AI based on a variety of attributes it instead looks at the intended use and potential harm.
Peter’s editorial also talks about Kim Dotcom’s co-founders taking a guilty plea in exchange for testifying against him and he provides some insight into the state of female founders here in Aotearoa NZ, we have way less than other nations.
The fabulous Viv Chandra contributed an article this week “AI the game changer, but who is allowed to play?” Talking about transparency and accountability with a great summary - “What we don’t want is to have two games, one benefitting those who have access and one where the game rules punish those who don’t.”
There are some powerful initiatives on this topic summarised in my AI wrap for the week as well as smart grids, the energy consumption of generative AI, ChatGPT’s jokes and a new Beetles song.
Brendan’s cartoon perfectly underscores the wrap up and is on AI vs Ethics.
Other things worth a read this week
Wondered what the 10 highest paid IT skills are in 2023? Well this list from CIO magazine did surprise me somewhat with some old and new skills included.
Changing jobs into a leadership role - well you can come to our Digital Technology Leadership Masterclass - and you can also use this great resource, designed for CIO’s but really useful across any leadership function in this industry.
The Cyber Risk Alliance have put out a list of the top vulnerability for 2023 so far and they do include ChatGPT
They make a salient point “In the era of the skills gap, understaffed security teams really have to prioritize the patches that make sense for their organization.” Security controls around staff use of ChatGPT is one they suggest gets priority attention due the the newness of the tech and the level of uptake.
We’ve mentioned the Metaverse a few times recently. Well this article paints the contrast between Second Life - remember that - and the Metaverse, how far we have come since 2006 and how it’s all seemingly stalled for now. To be fair this article is really about Second Life, and the concept of virtual worlds and living through an online persona. Personally I have never ventured onto either platform - have you? I would love to learn more about these.
Peter has also written an AWS initiative in schools focusing on Māori and Pacifika learners.
Events
It’s National Volunteer Week! Thank you to everyone who gives up their time to do anything volunteering, you are all amazing - ka nui te mihi.
If you don’t volunteer there are so many opportunities and I am happy to help you find the one that best suits your availability, skills and experience so drop me a line [email protected]
I have two Fireside chats coming up
Watch this space too - I am heading off around the country on a roadshow with Daniel Merriot to talk about SFIA, the Skills Framework for the Information Age and how we as an industry can embrace utilising this great framework for development of standardised position descriptions and measuring career development. We will also be talking about the new version, SFIA9 that is in development. Coming to a town near you.
Te Reo Māori Digital Technology terms
This week I have used the Dictionary of Māori Computer related terms, Edition 2 as my reference point.
Here are some job titles today.
Analyst Programmer = Kaiwhakamahi Rorohiko
Developer = Kaiwhanake
Database Administrator = Kaiwhakahaere Patengi Raraunga
Designer = Kaihoahoa
Helpdesk Operator = Kaituku awhina-a-waea Rorohiko
Systems Analyst = Poutatari Punaha
Finally
I am enjoying 35C days and catching up with good friends this week, I know it’s not cool to report on how wonderful my holiday is but it really has been a fabulous week so far here in Malaysia. Hope you are staying dry and warm back home. Noho ora mai - stay well and look after yourself. Vic
