Pānui 28th July
Kia ora koutou ITP members and supporters. Welcome to the last digital pānui of July 2023. This is a shorter one as I have been struck down by winter germs this week - joining many of you with sessional flu which was not fun.
Where I have been in meetings many of those were education system related. My quest this year has been to work as broadly across the education system as possible, connecting people up who should know each other and collaborate, provide a context of why digital technology is so important for all industries and the future of work, amplify the voices of teachers - especially those trying to teach the digital technology curriculum at schooling and vocational levels, and trying to reorient our education system to ensure we embrace and make it easy for learners to earn while they learn, gain experience within the workforce and learn in modern ways. A long but necessary list. Next week I will write a few blogs on meetings, offerings and challenges I’ve observed this year so far.
Speaking of education the CITRENZ conference has been announced for this year. It’s a conference for those who work in the vocational education space - Computer Information Technology Research Education NZ specifically. Check it out. They are looking for sponsors, speakers and attendees.
Bridging the Gap Podcast
Last week we released our new podcast Bridging the Gap, I hope you have managed to subscribe and listen to both Izzi and Selva, or watched the chat, all the links are on podcast.itp.nz
This week we have two new podcasts for you.
Elinor Sapir (formerly Swery) - I have been a massive Elinor fan since I met her when she started in IBM’s graduate programme, it was obvious then she was on a trajectory for changing the world. Since departing our shores she has worked in Silicon Valley and now in Tel Aviv, continued her higher education, work in AI and bringing her many threads of experience together in new technology contexts. Loved catching up with her from our different timezones while still having a very kiwi discussion.
Dila Beisembayeva - a force to be reckoned with in the vocational education space Dila is all about continuous learning and brings micro credentials to life for Te Pūkenga. She talks about collaboration and working across the education system, she describes herself as a “bridge” which is where I see her role from the outside. Her journey is great to listen to - it took her 6-7 months to get her first job after graduating, with lack of experience described to her as the main reason for being turned down. Great insight.
Taxi driver reckonings
The wonderful thing about travel is the opportunity chat with taxi (in my case Zoomy) drivers and listen to their perspectives on the upcoming election. Here are the key takeouts from a few rides this last couple of weeks. All of my drivers have been immigrants to Aotearoa, men and here for 5 years to 36 years in one case.
So I thought I would share their thoughts on the up coming elections. General consensus is National/Act - with some moderate enthusiasm for Winston Peters making a comeback - will win. Comments like “the labour government have done nothing since Covid” were pretty common.
I asked them what they think will change with a national/act government?
- Not much.
- All were sceptical of "Luxons" ability to make a difference.
- One observed national will be inexperienced as labour were 6 years ago - queue Winston Peters.
I also asked what would they fix if they were the government?
- super annuitants deserve more than $300 per week, they paid taxes all their lives
- NZ is the most racist country in the world. We have a terrible reputation everywhere else in the world for this now. We need to teach young people about compassion, respect and tolerance.
- Stop the government wasting money on things the people don’t care about
- Lots and lots of ideas on the cost of living crisis, claims a lot of this is being caused by exploitation by supermarkets and suppliers taking advantage of the situation and hocking prices. No good solutions on how to fix it though.
Blogs
Peter’s editorial today is on the announcement by Minister Little on the Cybersecurity shake-up and a dearth of digital policies. I am a member of the CSAC who advised the minister on a range of things in the cyber security space, so while I would love to make comment on this - I can’t, so I will just quote Peter - “… I’m ambivalent about where CERT NZ sits. The new structure mirrors that of Australia’s emergency response team, which sits within the Australian Signals Directorate. There’s some logic in having all of this expertise in one place. The test will be whether that perceived lack of trust is reflected in engagement with CERT moving forward. Whoever is in government needs to check in on progress regularly and be transparent in its reporting of how businesses and consumers are using this service.”
The last few weeks I have been head down working through the consultation process for Safer Online Services and Media Platforms. This is complex and wide reaching. Necessary but feeling like DIA are trying to boil the ocean so unpicking which part of the puzzle to prioritise while designing the rest is a challenge for my brain. If you have seen this and wondered what it’s all about I wrote a blog Getting your head around the Safer Online Services and Media Platforms Consultation.
Peter has also written on DIA’s guidance on how to use generative AI in the public sector, explaining what they have said. Peter was much kinder than I have been - if you would like to read my take on all of this then check out my wee rant in my AI wrap this week.
Other topics in that AI Wrap include FraudGPT, OpenAI shutting down their AI detection tool, The new Frontier Models Forum and a quick list of interesting articles to read.
Our guest post this week is The Future of money is digital - but NZ needs a careful framework to prevent the pitfalls of cryptocurrency. Wearing my DECA hat I’ve been engaging with the Reserve Bank from the equity perspective, so it’s really interesting to read more from the cryptocurrency perspective too.
In short
Te Reo Māori Digital Technology terms
A phrase I was told this week by a colleague was “Mō taku hē, kei te ako tonu au i te reo Māori” sorry I am still learning te reo Māori, which I will try to use in Te Reo Māori rather than English moving forward. Full list of terms can be found here.
Microphone = hopuoro
Audio = ororongo
Video = ataata
Finally
Brendan was inspired by the events at Twitter this week with the logo we all recognise fondly being replaced with a new stylised X. Hope you enjoy his interpretation on events. Ka kite ano, Vic
