CIO

Movers and shakers: Grant Taylor of Acland Holdings and Lukasz Zawilski of NZQA

Plus: Microsoft NZ Imagine Cup winners, Charity-IT’s hackathon and the Ntec New Zealand Computer Museum.
Microsoft Director Developer Experience Nigel Parker with Imagine Cup Winners Alyssa Ong, Vivien Liu and Opender Singh from team Tether, and Microsoft Managing Director Paul Muckleston.

Microsoft Director Developer Experience Nigel Parker with Imagine Cup Winners Alyssa Ong, Vivien Liu and Opender Singh from team Tether, and Microsoft Managing Director Paul Muckleston.

Grant Taylor has resigned as CIO of Kathmandu and is moving to Acland Holdings as chief operating officer. Acland Holdings include Citta Design, Bo Concept furniture and Corso de Fiori.

Taylor joined Kathmandu in August 2010, and before this was regional CIO at the Southern District Health Board. His previous roles included IT manager at PGG Wrightson and branch manager at Gen-i (now Spark Digital).

Jolann van Dyk, who will take on the CIO role next month, joined Kathmandu in July 2014 as enterprise solutions manager. He has more than 16 years’ experience in the IT management and consulting services, including senior leadership roles at Farmlands Co-operative Society, Intergen and HP.

In Wellington, Lukasz Zawilski is the new CIO at the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. He came from the Ministry for Primary Industries where he was manager, strategy and architecture for over two-and-a-half years.

Wellington charities get free IT expertise
More than 40 volunteers joined the third hackathon run by Charity-IT to help not for profits get free IT expertise.

The charities helped were Able Pet Care, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Kiwi Community Assistance and Nature Through Arts Collective in Wellington.
The charities say this help is invaluable to their work and would cost more than they can afford if they had to pay, according to Charity IT founders, Mel Bourke and Althea Carbon.

The team of volunteers started from scratch with Nature Through Arts Collective giving them a complete web presence and online education, including a whole new website, social media tools and a fully designed logo.
As well as website refreshes and overhauls, Able Pet Care had an automated payroll system built for their disabled employees, Big Brothers Big Sisters now have an alumni sign up system for prospective donations and past volunteers, and Kiwi Community Assistance moved onto a more robust website back end.

The next hackathon will be held in Christchurch in May. The hackathon was hosted at Servcorp and sponsored by Snapper, Psoda, and Hell Pizza.

Auckland uni team wins first place at Microsoft NZ Imagine Cup

An app called Tether that connects people to work opportunities through social networks wins first place at the 2015 Microsoft New Zealand Imagine Cup competition.

Tether is the brainchild of University of Auckland students Alyssa Ong, Vivien Lei and Opender Singh, and uses Facebook integration to allow users to actively search their extended social network for people with skills required for casual jobs they need done.

The Tether team won $5000 and the opportunity to compete in the Asia-Pacific regional round of the global Imagine Cup competition. If successful there, the team will then have the chance to travel to the worldwide finals in Seattle in June.

The judging panel consisted of leaders from New Zealand’s innovation community, including Dr Michelle Dickinson (Co-Founder of OMGTech), Andy Hamilton (Chief Operating Officer for The Icehouse), Jim Donegan (US Consul General), Sacha Judd (a partner at Buddle Finlay) and Helen Robinson (Director of ATEED and the Chairperson of Network for Learning).

Inside the Ntec New Zealand Computer Museum

Techvana will now be known as The Ntec New Zealand Computer Museum after the National Tertiary Education Consortium has signed up as its diamond sponsor.

Ntec is providing Techvana with an entire floor of one of its buildings on 25 Federal Street in Auckland’s central business district. “This is only 100 metres from Fanshawe Street and puts Techvana close to the Viaduct and Wynyard Innovation Quarter,” says Techvana CEO Mark Barlow.

“The partnership is part of Ntec’s strategy to provide education to its students for employment and enterprise. We are looking forward to the partnership and believe it will be highly beneficial to both parties,” says Ntec’s CEO Dr Sam Malafeh.

Once renovations are complete, Techvana will have exhibition and event space, including meeting and education rooms, offices, and storage Techvana will work with Ntec and its students on a number of projects, providing both work experience and connections to the IT industry.

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