Tech will be the talk of the town

Techweek’18 Waikato is just around the corner and project coordinator Jannat Maqbool said with each event designed carefully and all the amazing speakers chosen to inspire, it’s all set to be a thrilling and educational event. 

“There’s already so many things happening in terms of innovation and initiatives in the Waikato all we had to do was pull some of it together, and now we have 21 events with 65 speakers.”

“It’s just going to be crazy. It’s about people who you wouldn’t know were doing what they’re doing, but they’re tinkering away. There are ‘out-there’ ideas, but they’re really interesting and exciting.”

She said the event was about creating connections and seeing those connections grow. One examply, she said, was the Blockchain forum which was an opportunity where people working with the technology, such as Nyriad in Cambridge, could spend time with those that were curious and wanted to understand how the technology could add value to their product or service. 

“We want to encourage these innovators to go forward. It’s about trying to bridge the gap between those who have the ideas and those who have the means to make them happen and getting them to work together.”

She said this was something they had already seen happen at workshops and discussions leading up to TechWeek18’ where people who would have never met realised they could and should be working together.

“I think that collaboration is something you will see come across more and more throughout the week,” added Hayley Smith, Business Growth Advisor at Waikato Innovation Park, who has been a member of the project team working on developing the programme since early this year. 

Jannat said the event wasn’t aimed at one particular audience, but rather everyone and anyone. 

She said it was about growing the Waikato as a whole when it came to technology.

However, she hoped to aim some of the events at students to help get the minds of the future involved. One of these is the Innovation in Science and Engineering event on Tuesday 22.

“It’s 12-2 Tuesday 22 May at FMG stadium and is a good opportunity to get students along to inspire them to consider a career in STEM.”

“We have Ngaruawahia High School talking about their participation in a nationwide engineering competition as well as Hill Laboratories and Ligar Polymers, a mechanical engineering student from Waikato University working on a flying device for Boeing that is going to talk about how he got to where he is and how others can too, plus a technology company developing noise reduction technology for drones.”

Nigel Slaughter, CE of Ligar Polymers, said, “we employ the best young scientists and engineers we can find and find that they are all committed to using the skills they have developed to make the world a better place. We’d definitely encourage kids who want to make their mark on the world to see pursuing science as a great way to do this.”

Whangamata Area School will also be getting its students involved by bringing a class to the Thames tech breakfast on Wednesday 23 May. A class with mostly girls, studying technology will be attending. Their teacher, Ian Fulton, said rural school children needed events like this to show them what was possible.

Jannat said the Thames tech breakfast was focused on Industry 4.0 and agritech and will present a real broad look at what the future of technology looks like.