Kia ora koutou ITP Members and supporters, my long covid and I went for a stress echocardiogram earlier this week and I couldn’t help but marvel at all of the technology involved not to mention the three professionals operating the tech. I also found myself reflecting on the regulations that govern the importing of medical devices - Medsafe - which basically involves registering the device in a database, asking the importer to assigning a risk rating and to make a declaration. No standards are applied, no testing or assessments of the device and importantly no special requirements for devices which are software controlled. Food for thought there. 

Last week I updated you on ITP’s Team Administrator recruitment experience, it was pointed out to me that my insight focused on qualifications not experience, this is correct, Seek doesn’t provide any insight segmentation on applicants so we chose to manually assess by qualifications in digital tech. Experience is hard to segment consistently so we steered clear of commenting on the experience of candidates in a generic manner. Data analysis can be complex, as the conclusions, correlations, causation, and decision-making processes largely depend on the methods employed to examine the data. For that reason I will also proceed with caution. 

The recruitment story did prompt a few of you to send me a couple of great images illustrative of our gender diversity challenges in STEM. Check them out in my blog post - Growing the Industry, no wonder we have a diversity problem. Bottom line we need to change the face of this industry, to encourage people we don’t usually see here to study and work with us. This post is on the history first, women were once the powerhouse in digital tech yet by the 1970’s things started to change, in this blog I unpick what happened and why and start the discussion on what next.

Blogs this week

Peter’s editorial - “Unaffordable, unrealistic”, our digital government plans need a rethink" - unpicks the briefing to Minister Judith Collins on digital government and her previous observations on how impressed she was with NSW’s digital service offerings. To quote Peter “We have to find a better way to refresh and roll out new government services, one where we remove the duplication of effort and offer a more uniform experience across the public sector.” I agree. 

Datacom our largest IT company has summed up the biggest opportunity right now to be data driven insights, Peter provides a breakdown of their predictions along with the “to do list for government” and the future of work is hybrid in this blog. 

Our guest blog - Editing memories, spying on our bodies, normalising weird goggles: Apple’s new Vision Pro has big ambitions - talks about this cool sounding tech and how it can be leveraged in killer apps, spatial computing and surveillance. It also delves into potential uses of your face in social contexts. 

Plenty of interesting news to kick the year off

The mega social platform CEO’s all fronted up to US senator’s on their collective failure to protect children on their platforms - Mark Zuckerberg, Linda Yaccarino, Evan Spiegel, Shou Zi Chew and Jason Citron were all accused of putting profits before safety and having “blood on your hands”. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar sums it up so well - “When a Boeing plane lost a door in flight several weeks ago, nobody questioned the decision to ground a fleet... So why aren't we taking the same type of decisive action on the danger of these platforms when we know these kids are dying?"

You can read more on this massive story here:

- Meta, TikTok, X CEOs grilled by US senators about child sexual exploitation | RNZ News

- Kids Online Safety Act may harm minors, civil society groups warn (cnbc.com)

- Christopher Luxon says social media companies must do more to protect children after Mark Zuckerberg grilling | Newshub

- Fan fiction writers rally fandoms against KOSA, the bill purporting to protect kids online | TechCrunch

Brendon summed all of this cartoon today - Rock and a hard place. 

"Elon Musk $56bn Tesla pay package too much" according to a Delaware judge. Shareholders weren’t happy about Musk’s compensation package, that he was also working on other projects while paid this much, how easy it was for Musk to achieve his compensation targets and internal projections which were not disclosed to shareholders. The judge summed it all up for us “Swept up by the rhetoric of ‘all upside,’ or perhaps starry-eyed by Musk’s superstar appeal, the board never asked the $55.8 billion question: Was the plan even necessary for Tesla to retain Musk and achieve its goals?”.

Tech Talk - Quantum Computing

Multicore World is coming to Ōtautahi Christchurch on February 12th - 16th. Multicore world is where I learned all about Quantum computing over the years, fascinating, insightful and very very technical. You can register here. 

Quantum computing represents a significant leap in technology, combining quantum mechanics with computer science to create a new era of computation. Unlike traditional computers that use bits (0s and 1s), quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in multiple states simultaneously due to superposition. This allows quantum computers to process vast amounts of data at unprecedented speeds. The field is still developing, with challenges like error correction and quantum noise, but its potential in various applications, from cryptography to complex problem-solving, is immense.

Explain that stuff has a plain English explanation which includes diagrams I encourage you to check out. 

Finally

Next week I’ll get back to sharing more events and upcoming courses, along with a couple of surveys to kick off the year for us all. It’s Waitangi Day on Tuesday so I expect many of you will be taking a long long weekend, I will be utilising this important holiday as an opportunity for a digital detox and to reconnect with the whenua (and much needed weeding). Mā te wā, Vic