In a letter to the minister, NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller wrote that with Clark also taking the consumer affairs, commerce and statistics portfolios, there was "considerable opportunity to advance financial technology, education technology, artificial intelligence, blockchain as well as digital identity".

But NZTech would still like to see a fully-fledged technology portfolio by the next election, a role that would also span hi-tech manufacturing and biotechnology.

"This respects the natural division between Research, Science and Innovation, a separate portfolio and what is essentially applied technology," wrote Muller.

NZTech recommended that a technology branch be established within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment from 2022 "to take ownership of cross-cutting policy, skill development, funding/grants and the international promotion of New Zealand tech".

NZTech's proposed action to attract top tech talent

It urged the Government to forge ahead with its Industry Transformation Plan for Digital Technologies, but to use that as the basis for the first 'Digital New Zealand

Strategy', which it said should be in place by the start of 2023. 

The measures, as well as implementing a national strategy around artificial intelligence, would seem to reflect widespread concern in the tech sector that the Government lacks a cohesive strategy on how to leverage technology to boost the country's social, economic and environmental wellbeing. 

Clark has yet to make any substantive comments about where he plans to put his focus in his new portfolio areas. But the rest of the NZTech Briefing for Incoming Ministers should give him plenty of food for thought about what could be done in the next 100 days as well as in the course of Labour's full term.

The BIM spans areas well-canvassed ahead of the election, such as fast-tracking visas for high-tech workers and investors, boosting the ElevateNZ fund for tech start-ups and updating government procurement rules to give the domestic tech sector more of an opportunity to grow its capacity.

But NZTech also advocates for an overhaul of regulations to allow greater use of biotech tools such as gene editing, the formation of a plan to "end digital poverty" and the creation of an infrastructure forecasting and management system.

It would use AI to "aid and model decision support at both local and central government".

Think bigger

NZTech also suggests addressing what many see as a yawning gap in tech-related blue skies research funding. It wants to see a "standalone technology investigator-initiated research fund" separate to the Marsden Fund, which it says is "ill-suited to technology".

The NZTech BIM amounts to a wish list for a tech-sector craving strong leadership, better decision making and support to grow the digital economy quickly.

Some of the work, such as the Industry Transformation Plan, is already underway and will inform the priorities Clark has on his plate over the next few years.

But the subtext of the TechNZ BIM is that we need to think bigger and be more ambitious for tech. The challenge has been laid down - The question now is whether the Government will listen and act.

Read NZTech's Briefing Paper for Incoming Minister here.

For me, the last eight weeks have proven to be very challenging (to be honest, a nightmare) engaging two capable and competent full stack developers. Unlike this time last year, where we were inundated with applications, this year not only are volumes of applicants down, the quality of applications has also headed south. And to top it off, people are looking for top dollar in return for not so top expertise - not my idea of nirvana with multiple exciting projects on the go.

So what are the key drivers?

Without doubt, COVID-19 and the uncertainty this brings to our individual and collective futures is a definite starter for 10. Even with New Zealand's stellar response, people understandably are concerned and anxious about where we are headed. As such, keeping our heads down and bums up with our current job on the basis of 'better the devil you know' mentality is I think driving many 'stay where I am' decisions.

Adam Shapley, Managing Director of Hays New Zealand supported this view saying, "Professionals who would typically be looking for a new job are more likely to stay in their current role, with the importance of job security on the rise".

Jade Moolman, an IT recruitment specialist echoed my experience saying, "Recruitment processes that normally have a life cycle of three weeks are now taking six weeks. Wellington has always been a candidate short market, and I think this is largely a reflection of New Zealand as a whole, hence why we have loads of immigrants here job filling. And now our borders are closed, meaning we have the same already stretched candidate pool of skilled IT candidates on NZ shores with loads more jobs to fill".

Interestingly, Seek recently published it's list of Top 20 most needed jobs in New Zealand - that is, what industries have the most demand for new workers. Developers and programmers came in at number four, after nursing (#1), administrative assistants (#2) and warehousing, storage and distribution (#3). But, volumes of jobs are still way below pre-COVID levels with the ICT category on Seek as at June, 2020 being 54% of what it was.

With this in mind another contributing factor to my recruitment frustrations could be that my company - Somar Digital - is competing against other companies for the same small talent pool - many of whom are significantly bigger employers and thus are potentially perceived as a safer bet than a 15-20 person agency. Simply put, we are competing with more companies for less talent.

As one of my staff would say "Meh" - no wonder I'm finding it tough.

However I'm pleased to report It's not all doom and gloom - there is in fact a silver lining as Megan Sipeli from Momentum Recruitment outlined:

"In an already candidate short market, we continue to see demand increase as we embrace, grow and participate in more DevOps/Agile/scrum environments. There are some exciting initiatives happening across both private and public sectors, a positive sign that there is plenty of work out there. Over the next six months I expect to see more returning Kiwis enter the market, bringing international experience and some new faces to the market".

We can only hope.

On a final note, I'm happy to convey that my recruitment story did have a happy ending. It took a tad longer than I had hoped, but the old adage of some things (AKA people) are worth waiting for resonates resoundingly with me! I did find two very capable and competent full stack developers and we look forward to them joining our growing Somar Digital family.

If you would like to share your recent recruitment experiences with your fellow members, please do - we would love to hear from you.

About the writer:
Fiona Reid is General Manager of Somar Digital, a Wellington based digital agency that provides a full suite of web services and design expertise, putting people at the heart of every digital experience. She also serves on the boards of both Somar Digital and NZRise, having previously worked in senior leadership roles across digital businesses in both Aotearoa and Australia. 

We may not have a definitive answer on the US election outcome for days, particularly if Donald Trump follows through on his threats to mobilise hundreds of lawyers to legally challenge voting ballot returns around the country.

But when it comes to technology and the digital economy, so much of which is influenced by large US tech companies and the digital platforms they control, the themes for the next four years are already emerging and the make-up of the US Senate as well as who claims the White House will be crucial.

Breaking up Big Tech

While President Trump has been busy cutting regulatory red tape since entering the White House in 2017 and largely maintained the light-handed regulation of the tech sector, the worm started to turn on Big Tech in the last two year of his first term.

Last month the US Department of Justice kicked off a major antitrust lawsuit against Google, which it accused of illegally monopolising the market for online search and advertising. That lawsuit could take years to play out and if successful may force a separation of parts of Google and a change in its business practices, such as paying billions of dollars to hardware makers like Apple to make the Google search engine the default on their devices. 

But even broader antitrust action against the other major digital platform companies - Facebook, Amazon and Apple, could be on the cards under Joe Biden and particularly if Democratic lawmakers claim a majority in the Senate. Democrats led the publication of a major 449-page report last month by House of Representatives congressional subcommittee looking at the impact of Big Tech's monopoly power on the digital economy.

It suggests sweeping changes including "structural separations and prohibitions of certain dominant platforms from operating in adjacent lines of business". In real terms that could see Facebook forced to divest Instagram or Amazon required to either host third party sellers in its giant online store or sell products himself, but not both.

Bottom line: While Democrats and Republicans alike have been talking up antitrust action against Big Tech, the threat of substantive action that could change how these major online platforms operate is greater with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. 

Social media clampdown

No one in US politics appears to be happy with how the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube handle political content. There is discontent, particularly among Democrats, with the level of misinformation and hate speech allowed to circulate on these platforms and which some claim helped propel Trump into the White House in 2016.

The political argument has centred on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which affords protections to internet companies who host content generated by users. Democrats have pushed for reform of the legislation to make tech companies legally responsible for the content that they publish and distribute. That call has been echoed both by Joe Biden and President Trump. The latter furiously responded to Twitter fact-checking his tweets in May by issuing an executive order to rewrite Section 230. 

Tech companies hate that idea as they would then be liable for the billions of messages they publish daily. But there is a lot of rhetoric here and plenty of self-interest - Trump continued to blast social media platforms for suppressing conservative content in the run-up to election day. Biden was outraged that other posts critical of him and the Democrats were allowed to stand.

Again, Congress is all over the issue with red and blue politicians rightly pointing out the need for some systematic change to tackle the spread of misinformation.

Bottom line: Trump and Biden would both lead a push for tighter regulation of social media platforms though Democrats would likely seek to go further. The tech sector favours self-regulation, but even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has called for lawmakers to give more guidance to ease the tensions over content moderation. 

Data privacy

The US has no overarching data privacy protection to mirror the likes of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. Some see that as integral to the excesses of Big Tech, with companies able to gather large amounts of customer data and use it for broad-ranging purposes.

In general terms, Biden and the Democrats are in favour of better privacy protection for consumers while Trump is ambivalent about it, or in some cases, has even pushed for privacy in the digital realm to be eroded. He famously pushed back privacy laws allowing internet providers to collect more data from their customers.

He has also threatened to force tech companies to build back doors into their encryption system to allow law enforcement agencies easier access to data in the interests of fighting terrorism. Still, many of the more hawisk Democrats mirror that view and former president Barack Obama urged the tech sector to build a system allowing authorities into encrypted systems. That hasn't come to pass, but pressure to do so will escalate in the near term.

Bottom line: Biden and the Democrats are more like to push through data privacy reform for consumers but national security and anti-terrorism priorities will likely see both sides united on a desire for backdoors into the tech sector's encryption systems.

The US-China tech war

Trump's trade war with China featured a high-tech component as he crimped Chinese 5G mobile equipment maker Huawei's global ambitions. He banned US companies from doing business with Huawei and asked Five Eyes intelligence partners, including New Zealand, to freeze the company out of 5G network builds around the world.

China has responded by urging its tech companies to become fully self-sufficient and the likes of Huawei are accelerating development in areas they've previously relied on US help, such as mobile phone computer chips. Dozens of other Chinese tech companies are on a US trade blacklist, but manufacturing of iPhones and many other US-designed devices continues uninterrupted.

The antipathy towards China has also extended to Trump threatening to shutdown the US arm of Chinese social media company TikTok and to ban the app from the US completely. That fight is currently going through the courts and it isn't all going Trump's way.

Bottom line: With China-US relations showing no sign of warming up, its likely the tech war is likely to accelerate with Trump back in the White House. Biden and Democrats would pursue a less adversarial approach to trade.

The tech workforce

Silicon Valley's success is in large part down to the foreign talent that has flooded into its research and development labs and start-ups over the decades. But to the dismay of the industry, 

President Trump has moved to limit the number of H-1B visas on offer to tech workers, reducing the international flow of workers into the tech sector.

Biden wants to reverse that, expanding the number of visas on offer and revise the green card system to make it fairer to workers.

While Trump's domestic tech skills efforts have focused on beefing up US cybersecurity capabilities and efforts in areas of emerging technology, Democrats skew towards developing a more diverse workforce and getting the disadvantaged into highly skilled jobs.

Bottom line: Trump's anti-immigration stance would continue to limit the tech sector's efforts to recruit the best talent from around the world. With the Democrats in power, the US is more likely to return to its more open and welcoming approach.

This week: Lots of debate in the US congress about safe harbour provisions for tech companies - should Twitter be censoring the President and should social media giants be responsible for their moderation decisions?

Plus: Telco complaints on the rise again and Computerworld's interview with the new Commissioner. Plus Stats NZ's data programme - what's happening? And SpaceX comes to town.

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

This week: Now that the election is done and dusted, where does that leave tech? And does anyone in the new Parliament understand our sector?

Plus: Paypal moves Bitcoin et al into the mainstream - could this be the turning point for cryptocurrency? And the US Dept of Justice takes on Google. Will it work?

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

This week: New Zealand, alongside the "five eyes" network and India and Japan, weirdly call for encryption to be broken. Yes, you read that right. Plus, what do we think about Internet of Things security? 

Plus the big CIO50 announcements, IBM divests infrastructure to focus on Cloud and AI, Tech in Antartica and Apple's latest phone. Big week.

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

New rules around tech procurement and use by Police, Palantir going public, tech investment and Ice House Ventures, NZ's use of data exposed in Deloitte survey, A great example from Les Mills, and the Aussies commit to spending $800M on tech initiatives - what's NZ doing?

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

One area that requires specific thought is the challenge that will be faced by those in their late teens and early twenties. New entrants in the workforce will be responsible for paying off the COVID-related societal debt burden, and they can expect increased rates of taxation across all income tax thresholds in the future. And, this will come on top of student loan debt if they decide to pursue higher education.

The new economic burden will further disadvantage those from the most impoverished backgrounds who lack the means to pursue higher education. As we see it, the poorest in society face two main barriers to education; one is the cost of education in terms of fees, and the other is the cost of forsaken income.

For some people, this has always been a barrier; they can't afford not to earn, or only to earn a minimal income for a prolonged period. As a result, learning a trade has been a path to the middle class for many generations. And having a parent who is a tradie makes it easier to get a degree, and unsurprisingly having a parent with a degree helps the next generation to become a professional. It is tough to jump one of these generational steps. Some do it, and it is an exceptional achievement when they do. However, we can do better as a society.

The Classic Apprenticeship

It's easy to see why apprenticeships are back in vogue again internationally; they have a lot of advantages. It offers an "earn while you learn" framework that minimises debt and eliminates that three to four year period of your life when you are spending but not earning.

The other aspect that I think is slowly gaining traction is that skills are essential. When degrees were scarce, skills were plentiful, and promotion was often limited to those with academic qualifications. In the internet age, where tertiary education is bountiful, we can easily see the potential for that structure to invert, practical experience becoming a premium-learning how to do something taking over from learning about something. The trend towards online teaching and acquisition of qualifications, will in all likelihood increase demand for experience gained through practical skills.

Over the last few decades, we have seen that it's taking longer and longer to reach classic life milestones. The ubiquity of tertiary education and its subsequent costs must be playing some role in this.

The apprenticeship system will allow people to earn earlier, to make a useful contribution earlier and to be independent earlier.

Crucially, it means they can start being entrepreneurs earlier as well. Entrepreneurial skill is like any other skill, and it involves a lot of trial and error. Inevitably there are a lot of painful lessons along the way. Those lessons or failures should occur when people are young, so they have time to recover.

Technology Apprenticeships

Most apprenticeships include tutoring in the theory of the subject. If we take the "tech" area to be about mostly, but not limited to, programming of some kind. Then one thing we can be reasonably confident of is that the more they do, the better they will get, and there are insane online resources that already exist to support development.

It's an open secret that most tech work involves being paid to google for solutions. It's a mindset issue, rather than a knowledge set issue. The only knowledge aspect that matters is the knowledge that you have faced what appear to be impossible problems before and have overcome them, with perseverance. Over time, confidence in one's ability to find a solution increases. This is not really about intellect, it's about determination and the accrued rewards of satisfaction that can only be achieved through solving problems

Implementation

It's up to the technology industry to decide. Do they want to reach down into the schools and scoop up that talent, those diamonds in the rough? The same approach is taken in the sporting arena by elite schools.

As Adam Grant says, "in job interviews and college admissions, we focus too much on what candidates have accomplished, and too little on what obstacles they've overcome." He goes on to say that "the accurate measure of people's potential is not the height of the peak they've reached, but how far they've climbed to get there".

It strikes me, that certain groups in society represent, are therefore an as yet untapped resource. For academic institutions, the challenge often comes down to identifying students who self-select out of the university applicant pool due to seemingly insurmountable hurdles.

A partnership between local tech players and established universities could fast track talent and facilitate upward mobility which is good for New Zealand.

What's in it for the tech world? A bigger employment pool.

What's in it for academia? Evolution for a business model that is under pressure.

What's in it for students? The resulting certificate will help students who earned it to get a job, partly because of the sponsoring technology giants' brand, and because of the certificate's practical value and how it will apply in today's real-world scenarios.

Leon Hudson recently returned to New Zealand after 12-years in Southeast Asia. Leon is a disciplined commercial leader who helps challenger brands to succeed internationally. 

@LeonHudson

Phill Smith  

Phill trained as a biologist spending 11 years at universities in New Zealand and Japan. Eventually managed to ply his self taught knowledge of computing into the position of IT manager at a media monitoring company where he met the co-author of this article. He has left the tech world to run his own importing business and now spends his free time writing python code to explore the role of sex in evolution so that you don't have to.

@PhillipSmithNZ

This week: Indigenous data sovereignty, Apple getting into bundling, and eRoad moving to the ASX (what and why?).

Plus the Commerce Commission's investigation into mobile bills and Google looking to provide clean power everywhere - an opportunity for New Zealand?

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

Only around a quarter of the tech workforce of over 100,000 is female and Māori and Pasifika representation is low - estimated at between three and five per cent. While pathways for women and ethnic minorities into the tech sector are rapidly improving, the reality is that the industry has serious work to do to better reflect the make-up of society. 

Improving the "pipeline" will only bring about change incrementally.

TechNZ has recognised that with a revamp of its governing board, a move preceded by a determined push to encourage diverse candidates to stand for election.

"The message was well received and NZTech's new board is the most diverse the sector has ever seen," said NZTech's chief executive, Graeme Muller, earlier this week.

Different perspectives around the board table

NZTech, which represents 20 tech associations and 1500 member organisations, has appointed four new board members - Delphine Ducaruge from Orbica, Duane Grace from Edusystems, Jannat Maqbool from Ecosystm360 and Mahsa Mohaghegh from AUT.

The 12-strong NZTech board now includes seven women, with three in their thirties and three Māori tech leaders.

"Māori and Pasifika tech success will be a critical driver of economic well-being for all New Zealanders in coming years, presenting opportunities for the development of new tech businesses, new jobs and the creation of a globally unique approach to New Zealand tech," added Muller, who would like to see such diversity reflected across the entire alliance of tech associations and member organisations.

Like ITP NZ, TechNZ is working with the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment on the Digital Industry Transformation Plan, part of which is about getting a broader range of people equipped with the skills for careers in the digital economy.

Silicon Valley has been wrestling with the diversity issues too. Statistics show that the big technology companies are dominated by white and Asian males, 

Only 35 per cent of employees at Facebook are female and African-Americans make up less than six per cent of employees at Apple. While education and inclusion initiatives are filling the pipeline with more diverse people, hiring policies and choosing more diverse boards to govern organisations is seen as equally if not more important to increasing the diversity of organisations quickly.

Why diversity matters

And why is diversity so important? Aside from the obvious pitfalls and inequities of seeing women and minorities shut out of highly-skilled careers essential to the future of our country, a lack of diversity also leads to bad technology design. As the Financial Times explains: 

"For instance, voice recognition initially did not respond to women because the designers who tested the products were male. Facial recognition is notoriously poor at recognising darker and female faces, again partly because of biased training data.

"The shortage of talent in the tech sector means that, in spite of progress already made, recruiters must think harder how to find the skills they need from a wider range of people."

In addition to the new appointments, the NZTech board consists of:

Anand Ranchord from Kiwibank; Anthony Watson from ANZ; Belinda Allen from Orion Health; Eva Sherwood from Deloitte; Kaye Maree Dunn from Āhau; Mike Smith from IBM; Nicole Upchurch form Centrality; and Mitchell Pham from the Augen Software Group and chair of the Digital Council for Aotearoa New Zealand.

This week: A bit of a deeper dive into the updated Privacy Act coming into force in December, and could we see class action suits as a result of the changes?

Plus political party policy around tech (or lack thereof), tech upgrade for emergency services, and Taboola and Outbrain's merger called off.

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

There are numerous stories of international buy-outs of our most promising companies that came with pledges to keep R&D operations in New Zealand while taking Kiwi-made innovations to the world.

More often than not the R&D operations have instead drifted towards the US or Europe-based headquarters of the new owners. That's not the case with Verizon Connect, the Christchurch-based maker of cloud-based GPS fleet tracking software that employs 3,500 people in 15 countries.

The company, an offshoot of the massive US telecoms operator Verizon, said yesterday that it now employed over 300 people employed in its R&D operation in New Zealand and will move beyond product development to start offering its fleet-management services locally as well. 

"We are very proud of our strong roots in New Zealand and our reputation, both inside and outside our business as leading as a global research and development hub," said Greg Newham, Verizon Connect's Director for Australia and New Zealand.

"But we now feel that it's more important than ever for fleet businesses to reduce unnecessary costs, such as fuel wastage and high labour costs."

Foreign investment from day one

Verizon Connect's longevity in New Zealand perhaps stems from the fact that it has had foreign investors from day one. Local capital was hard to come by in 2001, when the company was founded as Telogis by entrepreneurs Howard Jelinek, Ralph Mason and Newth Morris, who set up the company to develop trunk radio hardware and software.

Then came the rise of the software as a service model and commoditised GPS tracking hardware systems. It allowed Telogis to offer location-based software that let owners of commercial fleets tighten up the efficiency of their vehicle scheduling and movements and to keep tabs on driver performance.

Verizon Connect bought the company in 2016 and while the founders left shortly after the acquisition was settled, Verizon has adhered to Ralph Mason's plan to double R&D staff - there were 150 of them employed at Telogis in 2014.

Drawing on research by Berg Insight, Verizon Connect, is confident the fleet management market in Australia and New Zealand will stay in growth territory despite the impact of the pandemic. 

"The number of fleet management systems in active use is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.0 per cent from 0.5 million units in 2015 to 1.1 million by 2020," Berg notes.

2 million vehicles connected

The growth is being driven by tighter health and safety regulations, road user charges and greater use of electronic work diaries. Verizon Connect claims that it's fleet management software can reduce vehicle idling by 13 per cent, decrease 'harsh driving events' by 15 per cent and allow drivers to perform 2.5 more stops per vehicle, per week.

Verizon Connect's customer base is largely offshore, though it is looking to change that by offering three months of service free on its fleet management platform and field management solution, called Reveal Field and Reveal Field Plus. 

Reveal Field lets dispatchers communicate job information to vehicles throughout the day, while Reveal Field Plus lets businesses collect feedback on their services through ratings and reviews and keep customers informed through enhanced last-mile notifications.

Verizon Connect tracks over 2 million vehicles globally, 60,000 vehicles of them in Australia. The fleet management technology business locally is a competitive one. But Verizon Connect is a significant player already so has the potential to see its fleet tracking increasing used on the roads where they have been developed. 

The R&D operation generated $39.7 million and $3.7 million of income in 2019, according to Companies Office filings, making in one of the country's larger, if lesser-known development operations.

This week: A big focus on cyberattacks and the NZX - how much of a role should Govt be taking in addressing illegal activity targeting NZ companies?

Plus, Weta Workshops moving into the Cloud, and better algorithms to find extremist content - will Twitter and Facebook take them onboard? 

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

This week: Huge DDOS attack on financial institutions worldwide, including New Zealand's NZX Stock Exchange.

Plus: CERT's report is out and doesn't make good security reading, Chorus's results and are they looking at Peering? And modern Windows turns 25.

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

This week: Google vs Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) - who's going to win? Plus new Consumer Data Rights coming and the impact on Open Banking, Hi-Tech Foundation, Covid Tracer App - where to from here? And much more.

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

A group of New Zealand's tech leaders have launched a charitable foundation to boost diversity in the tech sector and have an ambitious goal in mind - to raise $25 million by 2025.

The Hi-Tech Foundation is aimed at changing the predominantly white and male make-up of the tech sector, which employs over 114,000 Kiwis and is now our second-largest sector by revenue. Only 6 per cent of them are females and women represent just 22 per cent of the artificial intelligence workforce.

When it comes to Māori and Pacific Islanders, the numbers are in the single digits - less than five per cent representation. The new endowment fund and scholarships to try and correct that imbalance. 

Erin Wansburgh, Chair of NZ Hi-Tech Trust

"The Hi-Tech Trust was established to celebrate success and in that goal it's been very successful but now is the time to do even more," said  
Erin Wansburgh, Chair of NZ Hi-Tech Trust, which runs the annual Hi-Tech Awards, held virtually last week as a result of Auckland's return to Covid-19 lockdown.

"Our core purpose is to encourage diversity and inclusion, with strong Māori and Pasifika involvement, including application forms in te reo Māori - and in building diversity and encouraging participation there is real opportunity for all New Zealanders to contribute to the valuable hi-tech sector if they wish," said NZTE general manager and NZ Hi-Tech founding trustee David Downs.

$5,000 scholarships

The Hi-Tech Foundation's 'He Whetū Mārama Ngā Karahipi / Leading Light Scholarship Programme starts fairly modestly - each year five successful applicants with be awarded up to $5,000 to cover tuition and living costs to support for career development and advancement of New Zealand technology students.

Applicants will need to be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents, illustrate financial need and be a graduating high school senior from high school or a current student enrolled in higher education.

The Foundation hopes to grow the endowment to reach its $25 million goal through "donations, subsidies, grants, endowments, gifts, legacies, and bequests of support". The endowment will be managed by Perpetual Guardian, which successfully pioneered the four-day work week and whose chief executive, Andrew Barnes, recently bought the Givealittle charitable platform from Spark.

The Hi-Tech Foundation, which filed its paperwork with the New Zealand Charities Services last month, hasn't announced how much money the endowment is starting with. But a video promoting the foundation features some big names with deep pockets, including The Warehouse founder and tech investor Sir Stephen Tindall.

"There are a lot of people who look like me," admits Soul Machines chief executive and co-founder Greg Cross in the video. 

Vend co-founder Vaughn Rowsell chipped in with similar sentiments, including via Twitter.

Turning the tide so that the tech sector better reflects the make-up of New Zealand is a big task, but there are numerous other great initiatives also underway with the same goal in mind.

Here is a list of just some of them:

Tech Women

Ministry for Women - science and tech

Pasifika in IT

Tupu Toa

Summer of Tech

Applications for the 2020 Hi-Tech Foundation scholarships close on 31 October 2020.

This week: a discussion on Covid tracking app options, CovidCards and more. Plus Digital NCEA exams are coming - how to stop cheating? And who's buying TikTok?

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

This week: GCSB's role in today's digital world; Will NZ ban TikTok? Apple fallout from Congress hearings - are all developers treated equally? Which political party has good innovation policy? And UFB: How are we tracking?

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

This week: Big Tech faces up to US Congress, a new Government Algorithm Charter to improve AI ethics in Government, updated Privacy Act coming into force soon, Garmin's ransomware attack - how did they respond?, and TechWeek 2020.

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

IBM's New Zealand managing director Mike Smith, says the Covid-19 pandemic had been "unfair in how it dished out rewards and pain" with many tech companies thriving as other sectors of the economy were devastated.

Smith was talking in a session as part of Tech Week, which is being held virtually this year and features dozens of talks and panel discussions on all aspects of technology in New Zealand.

He said that IBM's New Zealand division was the first to go into lockdown, a move that was soon followed by around 350,000 IBM employees around the world.

"Weirdly and thankfully, there was very little impact to our business during lockdown," Smith told the Tech Week audience. 

"We went to remote working very quickly. We also managed to close four very large deals in the second quarter to [June 30] including one of our largest deals ever. I never would have predicted we'd be able to do that 100 per cent online," he added.

Setting up 35,000 Kiwis to work from home

IBM, an iconic US tech company known as 'Big Blue' in corporate America, had assisted 35,000 Kiwis into remote working in the weeks following lockdown through providing a mix of online services, software, hardware and advice, including many essential workers.

Smooth said that those companies that had already moved much of their operations to the cloud had navigated lockdown relatively well.

"They were able to go remote, were able to easily scale workloads and could adapt the customer experience model to online and digital," he said.

He pointed to wine company Delegat, which saw many of its export markets temporarily inaccessible as other countries went into lockdown. It also faced the complicating factor of having to harvest its grapes during the lockdown.

Delegat had moved to IBM Planning Analytics, a cloud-based software suite so its remote workforce was able to continue to forecast sales and adjust production as needed. Delegat this month reported an unaudited profit after tax of $64.1 million for the year to June 30, up 37 per cent on last year.

Another wine company, Auckland-based Fine Wine Delivery Company, had seen 60 per cent growth in online sales since Covid-19 hit. Prior to the pandemic, the company had digitized 22 years of wine tasting notes and used IBM's Watson artificial intelligence platform to analyse them.

"They fed them into Watson and created a virtual sommelier to help customers using natural language to help them find their favourite wine," said Smith.  

He calls companies applying such technologies "cognitive enterprises" and said the priority now was for businesses to leverage technology to standardise operations that had been established as a response to the pandemic, reduce costs and gear up to be more responsive to the next crisis.

IBM's own surveying showed that most businesses would continue to use a hybrid home-office working model or move closer to a 100 per cent 'work from anywhere' policy, which would only increase the use of cloud-based software and apps and increase the need for cybersecurity.

Preparing for the next shock

"The economic model for cloud is really simple - use more, pay more, use less, pay less. So if your business ran on cloud and your business reduced 50 per cent during Covid, well so would some of your costs automatically. That's the model," he said.

Longer-term, New Zealand businesses would been to think more about supply chain vulnerabilities with future global shocks in mind and address skills shortages in high-value areas of technology.

The pandemic had shown we wouldn't always be able to rely on immigration to supply a skilled tech workforce and recent government initiatives to upskill people had a trades focus.

"That's really focused on trades-based skills for the infrastructure projects. We have to add to this a national reskilling programme for digital skills," said Smith.

Three things had got IBM through the lockdown, said Smith: dedication to the client's success, innovation that matters and trust and responsibility in its relationships.

Said Smith: "This is all connected and becomes your North Star."

He wasn't speaking metaphorically but rather than tanks and ships, these attackers were using cyber-warfare to undermine Australia's political, financial, corporate and social fabric.

Although the PM didn't name the attacking country Australia's relations with China have drifted somewhat in recent years as Australia adopts a more belligerent tone, following the US lead on relations with the Communist nation.

Australia is going to spend an additional A$1.3 billion over the next three or four years to ramp up the country's defences, and in order to do so it will hire 500 new cyber-spies to join the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) the government agency dedicated to electronic intelligence gathering.

The ASD is very similar in set-up to New Zealand's own Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) but has one major difference. The ASD explicitly targets foreign intelligence for collection. The organisation's motto (yes, it has a motto) is, "Reveal their secrets, protect our own".

For all its odd phrasing and the use of 'reveal' instead of perhaps 'uncover', the aim of the ASD is to go out and engage with the enemy.

"We collect foreign intelligence; we provide advice and assistance on information and cyber security; and we conduct offensive cyber operations."

That last part - the conducting of offensive cyber operations - puts the ASD in a different light to our own agency.

The GCSB's role is more muted, at least in its public statements. The GCSB's emphasis is on gathering data and defending New Zealand's information, not on taking the fight to the opposition.

The Australian government also set up a "Cyber Security Strategy Industry Advisory Panel" to review Australia's capability and make a series of recommendations that will, in part, be filled by the A$1.3 billion budget and sets up the government's 2020 Cyber Security Strategy which will be released in the coming weeks.

Two things spring to mind when reading the report - Australia is well ahead of New Zealand in terms of its level of response to these issues and, secondly, if we're not careful Australia will hire as many cyber-security people as New Zealand can churn out making life very difficult for government and corporate CIOs alike on this side of the ditch.

Australia is already training cyber-security experts at degree level in a number of universities, offering a dedicated educational pathway that New Zealand simply doesn't have at this stage. Sure, we have Unitec's undergrad diploma in cybersecurity - a fine start - but that's it. Everyone else is working off a general tech background.

And sure, I'll be the first to say you don't need a degree to be able to do some of these jobs and yes, absolutely IT is changing rapidly, none more so than the security end of town, but the ability to offer a tertiary degree suggests there are lecturers, a critical mass of students and enough interest in the sector to warrant creating course materials and getting stuck in.

The second problem is how to fill those 500 roles quickly - and training newbies is going to take time. Better to hire a bunch of existing cybersecurity techs and put them to work.

That's where the offensive capability piece really comes into play - who wouldn't want to go work for the spy agency that is attacking the bad guys instead of just trying to fend them off? Surely that's a huge drawcard for cybersecurity folk both in Australia and here in New Zealand.

COVID has, of course, put international travel on hold for many and certainly Australia doesn't appear to be faring terribly well at the moment, but this will pass and those roles will still be soaking up talent, so it's time for New Zealand to act.

While I'm not suggesting we build our own offensive capability it does seem timely that we step up our engagement with cybersecurity as a discipline.

Part one of that is to realise that cybersecurity, and indeed the rest of the ICT sector, are valuable and viable employment paths for new recruits. Forget accounting, forget management, if you've got a head for numbers and an interest in the world outside the cubicle in an industry that is growing globally and offers rewards and entertainment then cybersecurity has to be up there in the top five opportunities.

You'll just have to convince your mum and dad that it's a real thing and not just a Hollywood fantasy.

Then we need more focus on this area at tertiary level. But of course, we could say the same (and we do) about a number of other IT related areas, including computer game development and plenty more besides. Yet sadly there doesn't seem to be enough interest from our universities to deliver and our current government doesn't fully grasp the opportunity and thinks IT is best relegated to those who can't study for a proper career.

Then we need to get the next wave of kids coming out to opt for this path over some of the others. That shouldn't be too hard but internships, scholarships and having clear role models will surely help with that. That's up to us in the industry to provide.

Finally we need to upweight our focus on cybersecurity as an essential part of corporate and government life. We absolutely need CSOs and associated teams in all our major companies, and we need them immediately. This should be a huge area of focus for every company that deals with intellectual property, with personal information, every company that has customers and suppliers and every organisation that collects data.

The ICT sector needs a strategy to drive this behaviour because it needs a cross-sector approach to ensure we can compete on the international stage and compete we must - because it's not just Australia that's getting its digital defences probed by the bad guys: it's all of us.

This week: Statistics NZ launched Covid-19 open data portal; big overhaul of .nz domains; cybersecurity in Australia and what's happening here; Video games no longer linked to violent behaviour; and Agri-tech Industry Transformation Plan takes shape.

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

Everyone should know the story of Bill Gallagher and his horse Joe because it so embodies the history of Kiwi innovation.

It goes like this - in the 1930s Waikato farmer Bill Gallagher took issue with Joe using his car as a scratching post. Bill came up with a solution - an electrical circuit that gave Joe a shock whenever he rocked the car with his rubbing.

Bill got thinking about that and a few years later developed the first electric fence, which is now a standard feature of farms all over the country and the world. Gallagher was awarded a patent for the technology and built an engineering business following World War II that became the successful agri-tech company Gallagher Group today, that is still run by Bill's son, Sir William Gallagher.

Gallagher Group is our largest agri-tech company with $271 million in global revenue last year and over 1,000 staff. Along with biotech company Livestock Improvement Corporation and NDA Group, a leading maker of dairy plant equipment, Gallagher represents the impressive innovation that has emerged from our primary sector. 

Agri-tech is big business

That innovation generates $1.4 billion a year in revenue and $800 million in exports for the country, according to the Tech Investment Network's (TIN) inaugural Agri-tech Insights Report, which was launched at Fieldays earlier this week.

But the report also reveals that our agri-tech sector is likely to look very different in the coming decades. Of that $1.4 billion agri-tech companies are generating in revenue only around $26 million is currently from information and communications technology (ICT).

However, when TIN researched the landscape of emerging agri-tech start-ups for this report, it found that 47 per cent are working in the ICT space. The high-value manufacturing that spun out of homegrown inventions and on the farm innovations is giving way to artificial intelligence systems, robotics and cloud-based analytics and monitoring services as farms go digital.

It means that the business model underpinning agri-tech will also change significantly. Rather than being based on large and lumpy orders of machinery and equipment, agri-tech companies will offer software as a service and claim the recurring revenues that go with it.

TIN's chief executive, Greg Shanahan, said earlier this week that in the post-pandemic world, the rise of these new business models will help insulate us against future global shocks. 

"Increasingly the modus operandi for our technology companies is getting revenue from cloud-based services and providing essential infrastructure on a business to business basis," he says.

"They are less exposed to consumer spending, which allows them to maintain cash flows over this period."

The Xero of agri-tech

I've spoken to several local manufacturers in recent weeks who have expressed frustration about trying to win new customers with the world in varying states of lockdown and travel heavily restricted. 

Some of our agri-tech companies sell machines that cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Prospective customers want to see that equipment and touch it for themselves before they place an order. The software-based companies doing smart things in the agricultural space have no such limitations.

An impressively diverse group of smaller companies is emerging in this space in everything from precision agriculture and farm management systems to remote satellite sensing and advanced genetics.

But we aren't moving as a country quickly enough to nurture this innovation, which has the potential to be a shining star of our tech sector in general. Agri-tech is, after all, an incredibly high-value sector, with an average sector wage of $91,020 beating the average wage across TIN200 companies ($82,040).

Each Agri-tech company earned an average of $282,690 per employee in revenue last year and there are around 5,000 people employed in the sector. Farming everywhere is going digital and we need to be fostering the agri-tech equivalent of Xero and Orion Healthcare. 

A shake-up needed

But we have problems, many of which are well articulated in the Government's draft Agri-tech Industry Transformation Plan which has been in development for over a year and which will be launched next Tuesday in its final form by Phil Twyford, the minister for economic development.

It points to underinvestment in R&D, disconnected commercialisation flows and a lack of growth capital. More fundamentally, our agri-tech companies aren't really thinking deeply about how they can take their innovations to the world and hence, we have a domestic focus to our agri-tech efforts.

"New Zealand products and innovations are not being adapted for offshore markets; and New Zealand innovators are not looking outside of New Zealand for problems to solve," the draft report notes.

"There are obvious and clear counterexamples to this, but the domestic ecosystem has tended to dominate activity," it adds.

As Shanahan put it this week: "I don't think New Zealanders have done collaboration well in the past, particularly because we are a small country in a small economy."

"When we are talking about a global opportunity, it totally makes sense," he added.

The Government put $11.4 million aside in Budget 2020 to develop its transformation plan for agri-tech and next week we will see exactly how that plan will be rolled out. We need a sense of urgency around it. The US and European countries, as well as other small advanced nations like Israel, are forging ahead in agri-tech and arguably performing better in the digital and software-driven areas of innovation in the space.

By doubling down on R&D, improving the interconnectedness of the agri-tech sector and looking globally for opportunities to solve problems that leverage our expertise and strengths, agri-tech has the potential to be our biggest growth industry. 

Peter Griffin is a freelance science and technology reporter and Techblog.nz contributor. Paul Brislen returns next week with Brislen on Tech.

Topics covered include Tiwai Point - what it means for tech. Plus Apple's first big ransomware attack, what the trans-tasman bubble would look like for tech, chatbots talking Samoan, e-waste as a global embarrassment, the growth of the NZ-developed 'R' statistical language and more.

ITP Members can view previous Tech Media Panels and webinars, alongside 100s of other events, on the ITP Member Library.

The programming language R, named after its founders Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman, has this month risen to 8th position in the Tiobe Index, which tracks the use of programming languages around the world. R came in with a 2.4 per cent rating on the index, up from 1.6 per cent the previous month. 

That sees R well behind the most popular programming languages such as C, Java, Python and C++, but coming into its own at a time when the world needs it.

"Lots of statistics and data mining need to be done to find a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus," explain the researchers at Tiobe, which is a Dutch software quality testing company founded by former employees of Philips Electronics. 

"As a consequence, statistical programming languages that are easy to learn and use, gain popularity now."

Speaking the same language

Gentlemen and Ihaka developed R in the early nineties and released it as a free, open-source software package in 1996. 

In 2009, the New York Times profiled the rise of the language and estimated it had 250,000 users worldwide. R was being used then across a wide range of sectors, from setting derivatives pricing in the financial industry to drug development in the pharmaceutical companies. It is particularly popular among data scientists at Google, where it has been used to illuminate patterns in its search engine data.

It's ease of use saw R gain a large following. As the New York Times explained a decade ago:

"Some people familiar with R describe it as a supercharged version of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet software that can help illuminate data trends more clearly than is possible by entering information into rows and columns."

The other appeal is the way R can be easily modified for a particular need, which has seen thousands of packages created and listed at the R website. One package harnesses R to unify international datasets to better understand Covid-19, collating governmental sources as well as the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, World Bank Open Data and even mobility reports from Google and Apple.

The open-source ethos of R has been integral to its success. R itself replaced 'S', on which it is based. But S, developed in the 1970s at Bell Labs was a proprietary language that failed to take off. 

Even with the rise of corporate data companies using proprietary techniques to mine and present data, R has continued to grow in use. 

Open versus proprietary

Indeed, as Tiobe notes, "the days of commercial statistical languages and packages such as SAS, Stata and SPSS are over."

Nearly 25 years after its release, R is having a renaissance and could play a small but crucial role in the pandemic response. 

And what became of Ihaka and Gentleman? Ihaka, a statistician, went on to develop another programming language, based on Lisp and rose to the position of associate professor at the University of Auckland before retiring in 2017.

Gentleman, a Canadian by birth, followed up R with the Bioconductor Project, which applied the same statistical and open source approach to bioinformatics and computational biology. After a stint at biotechnology Genentech, he joined personal genomics company 23andMe in 2015 as vice president.

Since the start of the pandemic, at Summer of Tech we've been asking potential employers whether they will be hiring interns in 2020. It's our version of climbing the Sky Tower with a pair of binoculars, and, like the Crane Index, I'd like to humbly suggest that our Intern Index® is an excellent good one way of measuring economic activity amongst tech employers during COVID-19.

After hearing back from 228 organisations so far, it's a mixed bag. Nearly one third (32%) are saying 'yes' they will hire interns in 2020, 48% are saying 'no', they won't, and 20% are still unsure.

However, the problem with these data is that we are querying organisations of all kinds, including some that have never hired interns or haven't hired them in years. In other words, that they aren't hiring interns in 2020 has nothing to do with the pandemic.

So, if we limit responses to only those that hired Summer of Tech interns last year, then the picture looks a bit rosier, with the yeses jumping to 55%, the noes dropping to 20%, and the I-dunnoes increasing to 25%.

Of course, these numbers are overly simplistic because, as we know, COVID's impact on tech employers is unevenly distributed. For example, some services firms are working 16-hour days to keep up with demand, and others are laying off staff. Companies that are reliant on tourism, retail, events, hospitality, etc are generally hurting, but we know also some that are doing really well.

However, if we look at the size of organisation then the patterns are clearer. For example, larger corporates and, disappointingly, public sector agencies, are acting in a risk-averse way and are slowing their decision making right down. This has the flow-on effect of hurting some of the smaller agencies/consultancies who rely on projects from these bigger organisations. And it hurts students too - we've had a flat 'no interns' from a number of the bigger public sector agencies. I know times are challenging, but I think this is short-sighted.

Smaller companies seem more optimistic. For example, 24 organisations took advantage of our recent offer to prepay for their internship placement fee, and 19 of those have fewer than 50 employees. All up, 35 interns were pre-paid, more than double last year. Maybe smaller companies are more agile, or are more WFH-ready, or simply more willing to take risks. (BTW, Callaghan Innovation's recent survey is worth a look - their clients also seem reasonably optimistic).

Given the mixed bag, it seems appropriate that I'd summarise with a mixed metaphor - I'd say that the canary in the coal mine is still singing, but the fat lady is yet to find her voice. 

Trent Mankelow is the CEO at Summer of Tech, a regular reader of pleated-jeans.com and is currently attempting to learn about interior design (a subject he knows nothing about).

An AU$1.3 billion injection of funding into Australian Signals Directorate due to be announced today by Australia's Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is the biggest investment in cyber investments to date, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

It will specifically include AU$31 million to build offensive capabilities, allowing the ASD to go after hackers and cybercriminals offshore. While Australia has been quietly developing such capabilities, it hasn't been a major player when it comes to offensive cyber operations, which are typically the domain of the major global powers such the United States, China and Russia.

But sources within the Australian Defence Force have been lobbying for the development of offensive capabilities for much of the last decade. In a 2015 paper on cyber warfare, Colonel Michael Lehmann CSC, of the Australian Army, wrote that Australia's approach to military power in cyberspace "has been largely that of a victim".

"This strategy advocates, probably unthinkingly, a cyber 'Maginot line', ceding the initiative to any attacker beyond the reach of law enforcement. There is no cyber deterrent and there are no options for government in such an approach," added Lehmann, who has since retired from the army to work in the IT industry.

Military sources have advised the Australian government to work closely with its Five Eyes security allies and the US in particular, which has by far the largest offensive cyber capability of the group of allies.

An unnamed state actor

The nature of the latest wave of cyber attacks seems to have crystallized thinking in Scott Morrison's government on the issue.

"We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting and the tradecraft used," Morrison said two weeks ago after a blitz of cyber activity was detected and linked to China, though the government didn't officially accuse the Chinese government of being behind the cyber attacks.

The Australian Government did respond with advice to deal with the "Copy-paste compromises" as they came to be known. The new funding will also include AU$25 million to establish a cyber threat-sharing platform, which appears to be similar to both the New Zealand's Cortex system, which offers cyber protection for critical infrastructure and the networks of government departments and large businesses, and Computer Emergency Response Team which is an information sharing and advice service offered by the government to businesses and home internet users.

A further A$118 million will go towards data science and intelligence capabilities to build up Australia's threat identification capabilities over the next decade.

Our own government has been very much focused to date on defensive cyber measures but has seen similar calls, emanating from the military in particular, to build our own offensive cyber capabilities.

"The number of state-sponsored cyber operations is rising and more governments are

openly developing offensive cyber capabilities," Kris Faafoi, the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media notes in the 2019 New Zealand cybersecurity strategy.

Sticking to defence

He acknowledged that "more governments are openly developing offensive cyber capabilities" but there is nothing in the strategy suggesting New Zealand adopt this approach. The strategy vaguely suggests "investing more in skilled people and resources to combat cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime". Funding was allocated in last year's Budget to allow the rollout of that strategy, with CERT receiving a funding to-up too.

The Government's Strategic Defence Policy Statement 2018 makes numerous mentions of the growing cybersecurity challenges facing New Zealand but offers no strategy about developing offensive cyber capabilities. Indeed, it notes towards the end of the document:

"The Defence Whitepaper 2016 set out an increased capability for protecting Defence's networks, but did not expand the range of cyber activities Defence was to be able to undertake."

That appears to have amounted to a pullback in moves towards developing offensive capabilities, which was the favoured approach of the National government and then defence minister Gerry Brownlie.

It seems then that New Zealand will continue to play defence, officially at least, while working with its Five Eyes partners under the cloak of secrecy to benefit from offensive cyber activities that increasingly, will be launched from across the Tasman.

That's why the tech industry has worked so closely with the Ministry of Education around digital tech education in schools over the last few years - a strong and genuine partnership that has helped ensure the next generation is ready. 

But sadly, New Zealand is going to be less prepared for the future of work than ever, thanks to the approach taken by Government and the Tertiary Education Commission around tertiary education reform over the last few months.

Frankly, we've lost all confidence in the process and it's time to speak out.

Some quick background

As an industry, we generally work really well with Government. For our part, ITP has strong and positive industry/govt relationships with NZQA and the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), GCDO and wider Department of Internal Affairs, Dept of PM and Cabinet and many other agencies.

We don't always agree, but do enjoy frank exchange of views; most issues that come up are dealt with quickly and easily. However sometimes a very serious issue is raised and not addressed and we have a responsibility to our community to speak out.

This is one of those times.

The tech industry, alongside others such as Engineering, the Creative sector and others, have been working really hard to try to get a good outcome in the industry-aligned part of the Review of Vocational Education (RoVE) which is happening currently. 

This is a massive review - basically changing the shape of the vocational education sector for a generation. This has a significant impact on our industry, but also greatly impacts New Zealand as a whole. And how it's structured is absolutely crucial.

We've been working on the Workforce Development Councils (WDCs) primarily - the 6 new quasi-Governmental bureaucracies being established to work with industry on future skill needs, then shape the education system to meet those needs via skills and qualifications.

The process of figuring out the coverage and makeup of these WDCs started well, with promises of the process being industry-led and responsive to industry needs. And Tech and other industries were completely united with input and feedback.

But then things started to head south.

Why do we care?

Our industries came together because there is so much at stake. It's not just that the makeup of these WDCs has such an impact on our industry - it does. But just as importantly, these reforms significantly impact New Zealand's preparedness for the changing nature of work across the board, driven by technology change.

So many in our sectors invested significant time and energy in figuring out what would work for our industries, and New Zealand as a whole, to best capture the opportunities the changing face of work created. And these are people who know their stuff.

And our industry really is united on this. For example, when we wrote to Education Minister Hon Chris Hipkins to raise concerns about the process, the letter was co-signed by the heads of every significant tech and engineering body: ITP, NZTech, NZRise, EngineeringNZ, EEA, Agritech NZ, BIOTech NZ, TechWomen, WaterNZ, ACE NZ, IPWEA NZ, FinTechNZ, AI Forum NZ, Canterbury Tech, and provider bodies CITRENZ and QTI. 

Lots of acronyms. I would say what they all are, except it'd take up too much space. Which is kinda the point. Our industries don't always see eye to eye, but on this we're united.

A plethora of proposals

First, the idea of a "Core WDC" was put to TEC. This would be a WDC focusing on core skills that sit across all disciplines, especially in the context of the Future of Work. Skills like IT, foundational engineering, business and entrepreneurship and more. The WDC would focus on the underlying industries, but have a big role in helping every other WDC come to terms with the technology impact in their industries and the other core areas.

This was turned down, because the makeup of these skills councils could apparently only be based on TEC's definition of "industries", and some of these areas were across more than one of them. Which is the point of course.

It didn't matter that in a lot of areas like tech and business, people practice in the context of all industries. In short, TEC were trying to use the "ANZSIC" industry classification codes to define things, and even though these codes are outdated and very blunt, anything that didn't fit neatly into their model couldn't be considered, regardless of what's happening in the real world.

So with this one decision by Wellington bureaucrats, we think New Zealand will lose the opportunity for a clear, coherent joined-up approach to the impact of technology on the future of work across our entire vocational education system, during the largest educational shakeup of our time.

Just stop for a second and read that again. Let it sink in.

But wait, wasn't this intended to be an industry-led process? The fact that this approach was widely supported by industry didn't matter either, apparently.

So, these industries went back to the drawing board and submitted two alternative proposals - a tech-focused WDC, or a wider WDC focused on STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Again, the rationale was simple: this is an area with a massive impact on the future of vocational employment across many industries. So let's set up a future-focused WDC to ensure New Zealand's vocational education system was ready for it.

But no, this couldn't be supported either.

Tech was too small, which is incredible since it's New Zealand's 3^rd biggest export earner and underpins most other industries. And we couldn't have a broader focus alongside Engineering without including a random bunch of other "industries". It didn't matter that these industries didn't have the same future focus, impact on NZ as a whole, learning complexity or structure or anything else that provided commonality - all "industries" had been neatly chopped up between 6 WDCs and that's all there was to it.

The Wellington bureaucrats had spoken again.

In many respects, Tech was somewhat fortunate - at least we were part of these earlier conversations. As frustrating as the inadequate consultation process was, and as much as the officials haven't listened to industry, others such as the Creative industries that bring us movies such as Avatar and LOTR, games, design and so much more, weren't even included in the conversation!

Next, our industries put yet another proposal to TEC to create a good future-focused WDC that fitted more with their model, focused on the future of work still, and based around Business, IT and Creative.

We were clear on what would work - bring these together because they have a similar structure and future focus and let them get on with it.

But no. The decision was to keep Business out (even though the heads of the country's polytechnic business schools and IT schools unanimously supported Business and IT being aligned), and include hairdressing, beauty, sports and recreation in this grouping.

Now these are mighty fine industries. But they have their own challenges and a completely different focus and structure than tech, business and the creative industries. Their challenges are as unlikely to be met by bundling us all together as those of Tech.

What about the future of work?

So because of decisions that were made throughout, seemingly ignoring industry's clearly stated needs and that of New Zealand as a whole as it comes to technology, we've ended up with a mish-mash of "industries" shoved together with very little commonality of purpose, direction, structure or focus.

And again, no WDC with a strong and unwavering focus on the future of work and the impact that the technology revolution will have on it.

The bureaucrats will say that all of the different areas have a focus on this, but that's simply not correct. Setting up 6 mini-bureaucracies without a joined-up focus, and bundling industries like tech and hairdressing together, will not achieve a good outcome for anyone.

Make no mistake, jobs are changing. The future of work is actually the "now" of work. The robots are coming. As an industry, we know this. The Productivity Commission knows this - they've reported on it regularly. New Zealand knows this - it's not up for debate.

And Technology education is crucial to these changes, as are business and entrepreneurial skills, creative thinking and more. And our education system needs to adapt to make sure NZ is ready, which is part of the reason for these major changes in the first place.

Where to now

The reality is, the needs of the industries that these reforms were meant to support have been ignored in favour of models and classification codes. The big picture has been lost in the bureaucracy, a focal point for the future of work has been scrapped, and New Zealand will be worse off because of it.

We're seeking an urgent meeting with Education Minister Hon Chris Hipkins and hope he will intervene and make it right. We'll keep you informed as things progress.

We need to get this right and we need to get it right now. It's simply too important not to.

Paul Matthews is Chief executive of IT Professionals New Zealand, the professional body for those working in Tech.

The moves come as Google also prepares for what is likely to be a particularly bitter and hard-fought presidential election campaign in its home country, as President Trump seeks re-election against a backdrop of race riots and the fallout of Covid-19.

The big technology platforms, Facebook Google and Twitter, take differing approaches to dealing with political advertising, with Facebook controversially choosing not to censor or remove adverts that blatantly peddle misinformation.

Twitter, on the other hand, doesn't run political ads, other than those to encourage participation in the political process itself. Google, with its vast search and display ad business and the ad-supported Youtube platform, allows political adverts, but limits the ability to target them to criteria including, age, gender and postal code, rather than a voters' perceived political affiliations.

In a blog post, Ross Young, Google New Zealand's government relations and public policy manager, wrote that Google would introduce a "searchable ads library to provide more information about who is purchasing election ads, whom they're targeted to, and how much money is being spent". 

"Our goal is to make this information as accessible and useful as possible to citizens, practitioners, and researchers," he added.

The Political Ads Transparency Report, which is already published for the UK, European Union, India and the United States, lists top-level information about the level of political ad spend in a country. Researchers can also drill down to see the advert itself, who authorised and paid for it, how much was paid, how long the advert ran for and how many impressions in received.

Young said Google would also introduce a "new process to verify election advertisers to make sure they are who they say they are".

It would work with the Electoral Commission to make official election-related information available and in a move to stop cyber attacks aimed at manipulating the political process would offer "in-person security training" to campaigns, elections officials, journalists and human rights organisations to help them avoid phishing attacks.

Facebook, which is a popular platform for political parties and their candidates to push their policies, has transparency tools in place to reveal who places political adverts. But it has resisted calls for it to limit the targeting that's possible for those placing adverts of a political nature. 

"Unlike Google, we have chosen not to limit targeting of these ads," Facebook said in an update to its political advertising policy in January.

"We considered doing so, but through extensive outreach and consultations, we heard about the importance of these tools for reaching key audiences from a wide range of NGOs, non-profits, political groups and campaigns, including both Republican and Democratic committees in the US. 

"And when it comes to targeting our data actually indicates over 85% of spend by US presidential candidates on Facebook is for ad campaigns targeted to audiences estimated to be greater than 250,000," Facebook added. 

Instead, Facebook said it would make it easier for users to see "fewer" political and social issue adverts.

Facebook already has a transparency tool in place that allows users to search for New Zealand-based political adverts and displays the same type of information on each advert as Google does.

The New Zealand Herald reported this week that Google New Zealand's accounts showed revenue had nearly doubled to $36 million in 2019 over the previous year as Google moves to report more of its local revenue with the New Zealand division, rather than in other countries. But the revenue still doesn't reflect the level of advertising Google books in New Zealand.

Instead, payments from Google to its parent company jumped from $85m to $511m. Despite controlling a share of the online advertising market in New Zealand worth upwards of $600 million per year, Google NZ reported a profit of just $8.1m n 2019 up from a $1m loss it in 2018.