Panui 30 june
Kia ora koutou IT Professionals members and supporters, it’s the last day of June and I am sure like me you are all wondering where the year has gone! It’s also been a crazy busy day for me - the last day of many financial years - with must sign / invoice / do by COB today demands requests.
Earlier this week I held a Fireside Chat with IT Professionals President Antony Dowling and Deputy Jamie Vaughan on Career Development. It is short - 45 minutes - and includes a range a great advice if you are looking to join the industry, new to the industry, looking to pivot your career or on a specific trajectory. They have great insights into continuous learning, how to find a mentor and finding a job too. Hope you can have a watch or listen. Next week I will be talking to Rick Shera about whether our legal system is up to muster when it comes to emerging technologies - should also be fascinating.
Hi Tech Awards
Congratulations to everyone nominated and to all of the winners. Celebrating success is so very important and as I mentioned last week I’m keen to find ways we can celebrate a more diverse group of successes moving forward.
I am still on cloud 9 as the saying goes after winning two Hi Tech awards with my fabulous Digital Future Aotearoa team last Friday night. It is simply awesome to see this mainstream event recognising grass root charitable initiatives finally (starting with Tonui Collabs winning last year) - and putting Digital Equity mahi on the mainstage.
- Digital Future Aotearoa won Contribution to the Sector for our education programmes including Code Club, Recycle a Device (RAD) and a variety of in classroom and in Kura programmes where we sit alongside kaiako (teachers) for a term supporting them teaching digital technologies in classroom (and bringing our resource library along too).
- Recycle A Device (RAD) won best solution for Public Good. RAD is an education programme first and foremost, where we teach Hi School ākonga (learners) who aren’t learning digital tech necessarily, how to fix and repurpose donated laptops. These laptops divert waste from landfill and are then distributed to those in need in communities local to the schools.
It was a great night celebrating with some of my favourite people. Here is a wee selection of post award hug selfies.
Digital Equity
While we are on the subject of digital equity. The Festival for the Future was held last week and this panel on "Why there is such a big Digital Divide, and how do we address it?" Is worth listening to along with the amazing wāhine toa Elle Archer’s keynote speech. Sorry I couldn’t be there but isn’t it great these resources are available online to watch afterwards.
Te Pūkenga and Apple have released a new micro credential and programme for Māori and Pasifika teachers helping to support their digital technology journeys. On one hand I applaud any and all efforts to support teachers. On the other hand I know there is a reason I am typing this on an apple keyboard, with my EarPods pro in my ears connected to my MacBook Air, iPhone and Apple Watch! We need to remember these vendors are both generous and buying their customers for life.
Finally, the team at DECA wrote to Minister Andersen earlier this month to bring her up to speed with all things Digital Equity. If you are wondering why this matters for us as an industry do please read the letter we sent to the Minister. It provide a good background of the state of affairs here in Aotearoa NZ and where government needs to step up their efforts.
We’re not the only industry focused on increasing women in our workforce
I came across this pledge from the Automotive Industry looking to increase the participation of women in their industry.
So we have some competition while trying to grow to women making up 50% of the digital technology workforce. One of the initiatives I have been working on behind the scenes is the feasibility of pledges for employers to help focus on diversity in digital technology - our hypothesis is any pledges will need to be simple, measurable and able to be tracked over time. Will have more insight into this very soon.
On the subject of women in digital tech. The Project Management Institute (PMI) has released this state of women in project management report looking at global stats.
How do we feel?
Thank you to everyone who has completed our survey on how do we feel now in 2023 vs 2022. A fuller analysis will be coming out on this and be included in our messaging for politicians. For now here are some insights.
- Generally 44% of us feel that 2023 is going better than 2022 did
- Work wise however only 36% feel things are going better than 2022
- In 2022 27% of us considered we were paid really well, this has increased to 54% in 2023
Blogs this week
Peter leads with “Microsofts’ leg-up from the government and the tech bro cage fight” in his editorial today. Phil Pennington of Radio NZ has been pursuing the extent to which the Government - namely DIA’s GCDO function - has been helping Microsoft gain unfair advantage over the wider market in recent years. Peter highlights the concerns at Government actively encouraging agencies to bypass procurement and utilise one supplier, at vendor lock-in risks and the overall need to improve transparency in government procurement decisions.
If you know me well this has been my soapbox for many years. Happy to see Phil Pennington picking this up in mainstream media.
Earlier in the week Peter wrote about the Hi Tech Awards which also inspired Brendan’s cartoon this week.
Also incredibly topical is the state of universities in Aotearoa NZ. I met earlier in the week with MBIE and academics on how we can create a framework for digital technology companies to improve collaboration with the research and development aspects of New Zealand universities, improve connections between industry and schools within universities to better serve the needs of both students and employers, and generally find opportunities to improve collaboration. There is a great deal of criticism as to the fit for purpose, range and quality of degrees offered - all on a backdrop of a government bailout this week. I for one welcome the intention to review the way our universities are funded and hope a stronger connection with business can be established as part of this.
So it was great to see we also posted a guest blog this week on what universities offer in the face of plummeting enrolment numbers. The hypothesis that we should be offering both in person and online only degrees.
AI wrap for the week can be found here. This time Ethics, women in Ethics in AI, Bias in generative AI, should civil servants be worried about their jobs - apparently yes!
Events
InternetNZ have a webinar coming up to provide some insight into the Safer Online Services and Media Platforms framework proposed by DIA. Next week on the 4th at 11:30am. You can register here.
For ITP members we have:
Reminder again about the Fireside chat with Rick Shera - open to anyone to attend and should be fun.
Digital Technology Te Reo Māori terms
This week my source is from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa’s phrase book “Kia Kaha Te Reo Hangarau!”
Horapa = Viral
Paetukutuku = website
Pūatahanga = emoji
Taupānga iti = widget
Finally
I read this article on the authors experience with a driverless taxi with interest after my first Tesla driving experience - while I was in control technically but felt the car really had control at times - it highlights the importance of trust in the tech to keep us safe.
Kia pai tō rā whakatā, Have a great weekend. Vic
