ITP Techblog

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

This week: Show you're part of the professional tech community... we're excited to announce the launch of our ITP merch - from jackets and polo shirts to hoodies and hats. And we're giving you $5 off your first order. Plus, ITx postponed and other Covid-19-related event changes, and come join our digital army to help teams out in schools!

Get your gears on

We're super excited to announce the new ITP online store, affectionately known as the ITP ClanGear store. You can now get your hands on a whole range of awesome ITP merch from jackets and polo shirts through to hoodies and hats.

So now, whether at work, events, or in the weekend you can show you're part of your clan - New Zealand's professional tech community. Perfect for you and the whole team. 

We'll be adding more gear over time, and we haven't skimped on quality - this is all top-notch gear and very competitively priced for the level.

Check it out at shop.itp.nz

$5 off your first order

To celebrate the launch, we'll give you $5 off your first order over the next week. We already run the shop on very low margins so this is a really good deal. 

Just use the Voucher Code "clangear" to get your $5 off. 

But get in quick - this ONLY applies for the next week and expires on Sunday 22^nd March.

Team options

And if you're an ITP Corporate Partner and your staff are members, we now offer a co-branding option on the jackets. So you can include your logo alongside the ITP logo, to go that extra step in showing your clients you're serious about professional practice.

Check out shop.itp.nz for more info.

P.S. And if your team aren't all members, contact us about group membership options for corporate partners. It'll save you heaps.

 

ITP Event changes due to the Coronavirus

Given the global impact and uncertainty regarding Covid-19 (novel coronavirus), we've been considering different areas of impact within ITP and planning for any operational disruption that may result from a significant spread within NZ.

One major area of concern is in relation to events. As well as taking all reasonable steps to ensure the virus isn't spread through our community as a result of an ITP event, we want you to know we're taking your safety seriously and responding appropriately while also not overreacting.

This has resulted in a set of policies that will apply to all of our events whether local or national in nature. As well as postponing all larger events, we're:

• Asking those who meet specified risk categories (recent travel to a country of concern, symptoms consistent with Covid-19, or recent exposure to someone meeting these criteria) not to attend our events.
• Ensuring hand sanitiser is present at the entrance and available to all attendees at all events.
• Ensuring appropriate signage is present at all entrances to our events.
• Ensuring we carefully track attendance at our events to assist in the case of an outbreak.

We're also asking other third-party events we partner with to do the same. Read more about what we're doing here.

 

ITx 2020 postponed

We're very sorry to say that, in light of the current coronavirus situation, we have had to make the very difficult decision to postpone the main ITx conference by a few months until mid-2021.

This decision wasn't made lightly, however the mix of health and safety concerns, combined with general anxiety in relation to attendance at larger conferences and the decision taken by many businesses and individuals to not travel or attend large events has meant we believe this is the only prudent option. 

Sadly, many other tech events and conferences have been postponed or cancelled for the same reason. In New Zealand this includes the Ingram Micro Showcase, PBTech's Expo, the HiNZ May conference (Innovation in Digital Health), CodeMania (announced today) and many, many more. We feel their pain.

Is it all an overreaction? To be honest, we certainly hope so. Other people have commercial and other drivers to continue running their larger events if at all possible and that's absolutely fine. But this is the right decision for us. As much as we wanted to run ITx 2020 this year, we need to put the wellbeing of our community first and foremost.

 

We want you for our digital army

Want a really awesome way to give back to the tech community? Come and be a part of our awesome in-school programme 123Tech!

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

The challenge 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 or in some cases via 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, join our ever growing digital army and enlist today.