ITP Techblog

Can you believe it’s July already! and 5 weeks since Budget 2022 - time is flying by.

To be frank the budget was pretty disappointing for our industry and for digital equity in Aotearoa. A small fraction of the Digital Industry Transformation Plan (Digital ITP) was funded ($20M) focused on building software as a service capability and telling the story of New Zealand innovation offshore. Nothing of the Digital Strategy Aotearoa inclusion pillar was funded either.

I find this confusing, there are wonderful earnest people inside Government agencies working to both support growth of our industry and close the digital divide - they get it. We often hear Ministers talk about the importance of industry and the $6.5B it contributed to GDP last year, and the importance of closing the digital divide - yet this budget says something else.

All of that said the Skills Workstream of the Digital ITP delivered the final draft on the Reskilling and Upskilling report and associated artefacts last week - a piece of work Kim and I from ITP have been leading. We are also scoping up further work in this space and meeting with cross agency stakeholders on a number of fronts. I guess what I am trying to say is, things are still progressing, albeit without the significant Government investment we had all hoped for. 

Immigration Webinar this week - Here is the Link. 

Please join us for a presentation from Immigration NZ on the changes facing the digital technology sector wrt immigration settings, including the Green List, Accredited employer process and specific considerations for our industry. The presentation will be followed by questions and answers. 

When - Wednesday 6th at 1pm - that's this week!

Link here again. https://itp.nz/events/online/2207-ITP_Webinar_The_Accredited_Employer_Work_visa

Speed and stability: Redefining IT with DevOps

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Chapter 6 of From Yesterday to Tomorrow, a plain English account of how DevOps came to be, the culture of DevOps, practices, tools, success measures, skills required and more. 

I learned about E-Skills vs T-Skills where a DevOps engineer has deep knowledge in a few areas and working experience across many. I also learned how DevOps was introduced to NZ via “DevOps Days” in 2013 and the growth of adoption. 

This chapter was written by BMK Lakshminarayanan, he concludes with: 

Organisations that understand the pulse of their customers know what they need and how to deliver it successfully, gain and retain customers. Delivering value at speed and providing a reliable platform, application and services to customers makes organisations more trustworthy. Teaching and adopting a DevOps mindset, approach and technical practices show that they are committed to serving their customers better.

In Person Events

It’s time to start cautiously planning for in person events again - yay! I miss the networking, catching up with people, meeting new people. There are many of you I haven’t seen since pre-Covid times so it will be awesome to reconnect. 

Our plan is to continue with monthly Webinar and compliment these with in person networking events for the rest of 2022. So watch this space! 

Nervous about networking again? I wrote this blog back in 2017 or 2 years pre-Covid. It's full of tips you might find helpful attending in person events again. Enjoy.

Finally - it’s the 4th of July today, so happy Independence Day for anyone from the USA. Some ITP news in brief from the USA includes: 

• 13 Hidden What’sApp Features every user should know 
• Confirming “big tech” companies have just had their worst quarter (stock price wise) in years
• Google will auto-delete location data after visits to abortion clinics
• Your Apple Watch in the future, Series 8, will be able to detect if you have a fever

That’s it for this Monday folks. Ngā mihi Vic