Today I was doing a rushed shop at a local supermarket, and I thought I saw a product advertising “dog beer”. As you do, I had to back-track three or four aisles to try and check it out but couldn’t find it. If true, this started my thinking about how facile life can be if you read all the labels.
My supermarket experience, almost derailed my intention today to write about last Tuesday’s Canterbury Tech Summit, an amazing event pulled together by a small team in a small city.
Aside from enjoying the whole event, I owe a particular vote of thanks to my friend and colleague Louisa Taylor, GM of Canterbury Tech, who has been a steadfast supporter and contributor to the development of the reThink Tech Talent Programme, which "launched" at the event. I say launched, but in fact it was an opportunity to profile the work; get the word out, as we are still in the early stages of this ambitious national programme.
The programme that we are launching recognises that people with different experiences of life can make enormous contributions to our society and economy.
The programme’s initial focus is on the 1 in 5 dyslexic learners in New Zealand, who need to be given a better opportunity to demonstrate their valuable skills in the New Zealand technology sector. Critical-thinking, creativity, collaboration, technical literacy, and initiative have been recently recognised as the 21st century skills deemed to be in great demand. But the owners of the skills are very often marginalised by the systems firmly embedded in the culture of our companies.
So where are we on this journey? The research is completed, and we are now building and testing the pilot programme, with the help of a number of wonderful volunteers and soon-to -be-announced supporters.
The summit gave us the opportunity to have in-person conversations with senior leaders of major technology companies, which would be hard to achieve in the normal course of events. Out of those, we hope to find support for a Canterbury rollout next year.
In the leadup to the damned election, there will be few other opportunities of this quality, and in the months following the election everything usually falls silent. Thank you, Canterbury Tech team, for your amazing efforts and support.
Comments