MiramarMike: Blog

It seems to me that many, but by no means all, of schools around New Zealand, have realised that asking their pupils to bring in their own laptops is both a boom and a cost saving exercise. And, on a side note, I await New Zealand businesses to catch up especially as , in a few short years, these pupils will be entering the workforce with expectations of using their own tech and baulk at the crap most given to perform their food-buying, mortgage-paying work upon. I was emailed by a friend recently upon one school's approach to "BYOD" and asked my thoughts: ... the intermediate school my child  is due to attend next year is mandating the purchase of a specific type of HP laptop and associated MS licences. Or else they don't get to bring a device to school and will have to use ones they provide. The "benefits" I can work out are that all warranty / support / maintenance are supposedly carried out by the school as part of the purchase of this $850 laptop.

I was at a client recently and I expressed the view that this client wasn't particularly adept at forming partnerships and yet they had it as a key component of their future. I wasn't disagreeing with their future state, it's admirable to behold, but I was raising it as a large risk that they saw themselves as being an organisation that with very strong partnerships (at an international, national, governmental, business and community level) as key to their being and yet they didn't have a history of such behaviour. And I was rightly challenged on my view as I am by no means the font of all knowledge with this organisation and there were many in the room that had a long history with it. A number of 'partnerships' were rolled out, some were acknowledged as having atrophied over time, and some were now being seen as more 'procurement processes' (you have / do 'a' and we'll give you $n for it ... that's not a partnership I would trust my

(this post first appeared on the ATLabs site: Engaging Civic-Minded Developers ) No-one wants to work for free. Only a handful are willing to take the time, energy and focus they normally reserve for work, family, friends and apply them to ideas that are seemingly unformed, goals that are best described as aspirational or projects that may never see the light of day. Even these folks don’t want to work for free. So why do these people be they experienced developers, UX designers, project managers, customer representatives, tech students or even “people with an interest in computers” put aside time to bring their considerable skills to “civic tech”? Ok, a definition is needed for “civic tech”, and here’s mine: The application of technology to open up opportunities to solve local* issues by the community directly affected Here’s one example of such a problem/solution - there are too many taxis with one person driving from the airport thus creating traffic flow issues. Maybe

Cracking video explaining how open data makes a difference to us all - well done to the Open Government Information and Data Programme team!

My answer, amongst all the other most excellent answers, focuses on the communities I work with via Hack Miramar , enjoy ... Kay, Jo and myself caught hosting the Hack Miramar / GovHackNZ stand ...

I had the honour to represent the Hack Miramar community, the Wellington GovHackN Z crew and the wider New Zealand GovHackNZ teams on Wednesday 4th May at An Open Data Showcase, hosted at Parliament by Land Information Minister Louise Upston : ... provided great examples of how innovative New Zealand businesses are coming up with entirely new business activities and finding ways to improve social and business services based around freely available information. “The presenters included companies with expertise in mapping, data visualisation and working with complex information,” Ms Upston said. Companies represented included Hack Miramar, Dot Loves Data, Dumpark, Thundermaps and Here Maps. More event ... photos videos