ICT in New Zealand: 50 Years On

This week I’ll be attending and live-blogging from NZCS’s 50th Anniversary Conference in Rotorua. The conference is intended to be a celebration of 50 years of ICT across the sector, not just of NZCS. I find it amazing NZCS is 50 years old – one tends to think of the computer age being the dawn of the PC in the early 1980s, but of course they were around a couple of decades before that – just a lot bigger!

I must say, it’s hard to think of a better line-up of speakers. As well as high profile people like Sam Morgan, Ian Taylor and Rod Drury, there’s also a huge range of experts covering pretty much every area of computing and IT plus a BarCamp on Saturday.

The focus of the conference is on Innovation. From their website:

We as individuals, as organisations and as a country must take action, harness our creative energy and ‘no limits’ spirit to propel New Zealand forward as a leader in the digital economy, and dramatically improve our productivity. Kiwi ingenuity is needed today more than ever.

And we must celebrate what the last 50 years have brought up, and learn from them whilst looking forward to  the future.

I’m led to believe there are still some tickets left if you get in quick. Should be an excellent event, and hope to see a lot of people I know there.