ITP Techblog

Here's a quick weekly update from ITP CEO Paul Matthews

A short week this one, and hopefully everyone will have a good staycation over the Easter "break". Certainly feels a little strange this year.

At ITP we have our Live Webinar early (today at 4pm) focused on cybersecurity from home. Plus adopting schools, the 123Tech digital army, webinars, podcasts and more.

And TechBlog's Paul Brislen has a detailed look at whether 5G caused Covid-19...

 

4pm today: Friday Live online webinar on cybersecurity from home

Each Friday of Level 4 lockdown ITP we are hosting the brand new ITP Friday Live webinar.

This week' session is happening this afternoon at 4pm and features a tech news roundup with the full TechBlog team, followed by a talk and Q&A session with Dr Elf Eldridge, talking about the new frontier for cybersecurity in the current crisis: working from home.

These Level-4 weeks are long and times are tough. So grab a beer, wine or juice and finish your week off right with this informative and entertaining session, delivered live online nationwide!

We have hundreds registered already, so come join us!

More details here 

 

Next Friday's webinar: Legal aspects of Covid-19

As we get closer to the end of lockdown (hopefully!) a big mess is brewing around contracts, leases, obligations, companies who don't make it through, etc. So what does it mean from a legal perspective?

This webinar will feature a panel focused on the contract, employment and other areas of law as it relates to the current climate. What are your rights and what this means for companies already struggling to get through.

More details coming, but you can register here

 

"Adopt-a-school" project

We're currently working with the Ministry of Education and our friends at NZTech to look at how we can facilitate tech folks "adopting" a school, and helping them navigate the challenges as they get thrown into remote learning.

We did something similar for some businesses after the Christchurch earthquakes and are looking to repurpose some of the platform delivered then, alongside our 123Tech programme.

More details available soon including the ability to sign up to help. In the meantime, have a think about whether you'd be prepared to help with this (answer: yes please! :)) and even outside the project, have a think about whether you could contact the principal at your local school and offer to help if they need it too. Our industry has a lot to offer and I know that some in our community have had work dry up temporarily - while troubling, a perfect time to give back. More on this one shortly.

 

Reminder: Lots of ITP short courses now available, all with 20% off

Given the current Covid-19 lockdown, we've made all of our courses available online, bumped up their availability heaps over the next month, and are providing an additional 20% discount for everyone.

Times are certainly tough at the moment and while some in our community are extremely busy, others are less so. A number of members have asked us to make more courses available so this downtime can be put to good use and we've done just that.          

With at least 2 different courses available every week, all delivered live and interactive online, here's a great opportunity to use this time to upskill you and your team. Pick and choose the courses that suit you.

Use the discount code covid19 to receive an additional 20% discount on all course registrations during Covid alert level 4 and level 3. This is off the listed price and is in addition to discounts for members and staff of Corporate Partners.

Also, let us know if you have 4+ people from your organisation interested in a course.

The current courses are listed below and we'll be adding more regularly. Let us know if there's another topic you'd like to see included and we'll do our best to bring it to you.

View all courses on the ITP website 

 

We want you for our 123Tech digital army! 

The Tahi Rua Toru Tech challenge is once again running this year in schools and kura throughout the country and we are looking for members of our community to enlist as mentors!

The challenge is simple, students identify a problem in their school or local community, and with the guidance of an industry mentor, use Digital Technologies to solve it. The role of a mentor is to act as support for the students as they build their projects, this can be done by visiting your chosen school (not at the moment!) or video call. 

Enlisting as a captain in our digital army is a great way to give back to the community and support young people as they explore and learn digital technologies.  

So if this sounds like you, sign up to help on the 123Tech website

 

RNZ New Tech: Zoom and Inland Revenue's Transformation Project

I spoke briefly with RNZ's Kathryn Ryan this morning about Zoom, plus Inland Revenue going offline for a week over Easter while they implement the 4th large component of their transformation project.

A huge project and hopefully all will go well. This update focuses on Student Loans, Kiwisaver, plus business obligation stuff (read: time payments etc).

All in all, I have to say we've been impressed with this project overall. There have been teething issues, but (touch wood) we haven't had widespread disruption. Good stuff and hopefully it stays that way after Easter!

You can listen to the RNZ session here