Opening and closing panels
NetHui South Auckland will have a ‘state of the nation’-style opening panel with a mixture of local and national perspectives on how South Auckland is using the Internet. The panelists will explore relevant research, local contexts and issues and opportunities for local communities.
The opening panel will be chaired by Edwina Mistry, Industry and Community Engagement Manager, Faculty of Business and IT, Manukau Institute of Technology.
Edwina has 30 plus years of experience in the IT Industry, has worked with Wang, Apple and Sanderson Computers (now called Gentrack) in the roles of Technical Consultant and Sales and Marketing manager. Over the last 20 years she has been working at Manukau Institute of Technology, where she was involved in the writing and teaching on the BIS Degree and has also been on various working parties with NZQA for the TROQ Quals. Over the years she has worked with local schools to encourage students to look at IT and Business as a career. She has initiated and run many programmes at MIT to connect schools to Industry and has started events that mainly focus on encouraging female school students to consider IT as a career. A major part of her current role is to create opportunity and place our degree students into industry for their final year project paper. In 2016 she placed 435 students as interns in Industry.
Collaborative note-taking document for the Opening Plenary session (opens in Google Docs)
- Mike Usmar, High Tech Youth Network
Mike Usmar is CEO and CFO of the High Tech Youth Network (HTYN), which was established in 2004 as a not-for-profit organization and is headquartered in New Zealand (Auckland) and the United States (Hawaii). The Network is focused on empowering young people aged 8-25 years of age who live in under-served and hard to reach communities throughout the Asia-Pacific region to become more confident, resilient and creative life-long learners by linking cultural knowledge with advanced technology. - Cara Sefuiva, Regional Coordinator Computers In Homes – Auckland
Cara us a Community Educator responsible for delivering the Computers in Homes programme in Auckland since 2011. Cara has extensive networks within the Pasifika community, engaging and equipping our whanau through schools and community centres in training programmes designed to enhance digital literacy. - Rohan MacMahon, Crown Fibre Holdings
Rohan is Strategy Director at Crown Fibre Holdings, the Government-owned company responsible for the Ultra-Fast Broadband initiative (Phases 1 and 2) as well as Phase 2 of the Rural Broadband Initiative and the Mobile Blackspots Fund. Rohan’s roles including engaging the many stakeholders of the UFB project, and building industry & community understanding of the opportunities improved broadband brings. - Charles Crothers, AUT
Charles Crothers is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences at AUT, after previously serving as a Professor of Sociology at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. Prior to this position Charles had lectured in the Departments of Sociology at the University of Auckland, and Victoria University and had been President of the New Zealand Sociological Association. He has been the project methodologust for WIPNZ since its founding.
Then at the end of the day, NetHui South Auckland will wrap up with panelists holding a plenary-style open discussion reflecting on what issues, opportunities and lessons came up during the day, and what that means for South Auckland going forward.
The wrap up panel will be chaired by Priti Ambani, who works closely with The Southern Initiative.
Priti is co-founder at The Next Billion, an impact-driven enterprise on a mission to raise the economic potential of women through entrepreneurship, that has just launched Globally Spotted – a discovery and amplification platform to raise the profile of smart and innovative women-led businesses from the world over. Over the last 6 years, Priti has worked on global teams, to grow early stage startups, at enterprises, non profits and organisations like The Southern Initiative that are keen to harness the productivity of the Internet to solve societal challenges. Most recently, Priti began working with Tech Futures Lab, helping Kiwis be better prepared for exponential technologies and careers in the 21st century.
- Lillian Grace, FigureNZ
Lillian Grace is CEO and Founder of Figure.NZ, the first organisation globally to assert that everyone should be able to use data in their thinking, and to build the systems, software, relationships and trust to deliver to this standard. Figure.NZ is a purpose driven social enterprise committed to creating a data democracy where everyone can make sense of data so they can see New Zealand clearly.
Lillian is on the recently established Data Futures Partnership Working Group, on the Expert Advisory Panel of the Open Government Partnership, as well as on the board of the NZ Innovation Partnership and of Te Pūnaha Matatini, New Zealand’s Centre of Research Excellence developing methods and approaches for transforming complex data about NZ into knowledge, tools, and insight. Previously Lillian was at Academy Award-Winning Massive Software, and at think tank The New Zealand Institute. - Helen Lesa and Mele Tapueluelu, 412 Project
We are the co-founders of 412. (link to our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/412yo
uthforyouth/) 412 is a collective of young people (age: 18 +19) that want to Empower Youth starting with South Auckland to become the driving powerhouse to success. We do this by utilising the talent and skills of our young people to bring positive change to the community through our videos, workshops and events.
- Alan Mitford-Taylor, Chorus
Alan Mitford-Taylor is Manager, Industry Relations at Chorus, the organisation bringing better broadband to New Zealand through the UFB fibre services, and copper based broadband in RBI and other non-fibre areas. Alan has worked in the New Zealand telecommunications industry for over 40 years from telephone exchanges, though dial-up internet to the gigabit fibre world of Ultra-Fast Broadband. - Mary Aue
Fakaalofa lahi atu, my name is Mary Aue from the beautiful villages of Hakupu, Vaiea and Mangere. I’m passionate about Community and Technology which is the reason why I started Coconut Wireless, a platform which celebrates all things Maori and Pacific and behind the scene, an effective social media business.