March 29, 2017
Boost for Maori in tech
Maori could be missing out on the tech boom going on around New Zealand.
That’s one of the drivers for DigMyIdea, a competition for Maori entrepreneurs on now.
Entries need to be in to digmyidea.co.nz by Friday midnight, and the finalists will get a chance to workshop their ideas at a DIGIwananga mentoring session during Tech Week in May.
Patrick McVeigh from Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development, one of the DigMyIdea sponsors, says the tech sector is growing dramatically across New Zealand, and in Auckland it grew 26 percent in value over the past give years.
But a 2015 study found just 1 percent of Maori in tertiary education were studying information and communications technology.
"So there is a bit of a gap between the opportunities that are out there and how we connect people to those opportunities so this competition is designed to stimulate that opportunity, to get people excited about how technology can create new business, how it can disrupt existing businesses," Mr McVeigh says.
One of the winners of the first DigMyIdea challenge, Brittany Teei, has gone on to develop her KidsCoin application as a way to teach money skills.
FULL INTERVIEW WITH PATRICK MCVEIGH
Copyright © 2017, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com