ITP Techblog

Kia ora koutou ITP members and supporters. It’s October - Whiringa-ā-nuku in the Māori lunar calendar or Oketopa - so Bird of the Year must be soon! I read recently the 2021 winner Pekapeka-tou-roa long tailed bat, has retired from the competition. I know it’s not technology but technology certainly enables this fantastic initiative help us all understand a little more about our precious (and often endangered) native Manu.

This is a very brief brief today, I am away this week at the CITRENZ conference enjoying the beautiful - yet slightly colder - city of Ōtautahi Christchurch. Vic

Voting - should it be online?

Speaking of voting if you are like me and need to complete your voting forms last minute I can strongly recommend using policy.nz as one of your sources for information - shout out to the Spinoff for creating this. 
The news on how low voter turnout has been reminded me of a pre-Covid presentation I attended on the pros and cons of electronic voting in the central government elections. It was back in early 2020 with my NZRise hat on, we ran a session at parliament for politicians about moving voting online with pros and cons and a variety of options presented to improve voter turnout. Then Covid hit. So I thought it timely to dig those views out again. Online Voting? No thanks, is one position and Improving Elections Digitally, is another.

What do you think? is it time to be voting online? did you manage to vote for local council this year?

Recycling Devices and the Circular Economy

I met with Minister James Shaw recently to specifically discuss waste from our industry - often called eWaste. We had a great chat about the role of the Circular Economy and the impact of programmes dealing with eWaste like RAD (Recycle a Device). Until I met the Minister I had completely missed the governments position on this, they have bold goals for us as a nation, for example these quotes from the MFE website:

"By 2050, Aotearoa New Zealand will have a circular economy with a thriving bioeconomy that seizes the opportunities from global trends and shifting consumer preferences."
"Moving to a circular economy with a thriving bioeconomy will support our economic and social wellbeing and lead to a better balance between the emissions we generate and the environment’s ability to store these."

Wondering what the Circular Economy is? check out this explanation (it has diagrams).

Reading / Watching / Listening - in brief

• Jacqui Maguire: Resilience and Mental Wellbeing - How to Protect You and Your Staff - a fantastic talk everyone should watch / listen it. This talk covers things like “Languishing is emptiness and stagnation”, Thriving, Flourishing, What is Mental Illness and how to make a change for yourself, in your team or in your workplace.
• Heartbreaking story from the Guardian on the negative effects of online content, where the social media firms are accused of “monetising misery”.
• Even Tim Cook agrees there is no excuse for there not being enough women in Tech. “Mr Cook said technology "will not achieve nearly what it could achieve" without a more diverse workforce.” Worth reading this BBC interview on his views on the gender imbalance.
• The RAD team were thrilled to be showcased recently on TVNZ news which provides a great explainer on the programme.
• Tesla announced some stuff - their Cybertruck will also briefly be able to become a boat, and of course the Optimus Robot

Finally for ITP members

- Reminder we have Tech Chat Tuesday tomorrow
- If you haven’t filled in the ITx survey yet please do here
- The fabulous Cyber Security Essentials short course is running on the 19th of October