Published on the 15/12/2016 | Written by Donovan Jackson

 Regions a focus for Techweek’17 scheduled for May 6 to 14 next year…

Tired of tech conferences in Wellington and Auckland? OK, we’ll admit that these centres do make the most sense for getting people together to jaw about IT, but there is plenty of activity out in the regions, too. Which is why NZTech’s Techweek 17, which will see more than 100 events take place all over the country, is looking like one to mark down in the calendar.

The organisation said these events will take place in businesses and schools with hackathons, innovative tech debates, hands-on experiential events, livestreams and awards ceremonies. The vision is to position New Zealand as a digital nation and demonstrate its tech pedigree to the world.

“Our goal is to stimulate an environment where technology provides important productivity and economic benefits for New Zealand,” said NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller in a statement.

Moreover, NZTech said that the events are catering to a wide variety of audiences including non-tech people, tech-heads, startup founders, international and local investors, business leaders and political figures.

‘Events will include tech business heavyweights and leading New Zealand business people who are already successful on the global stage. At the other end of the scale we will see local communities and schools experimenting with technology to inspire the next generation’, the organisation said.

Igor Matich, MD at Hamilton-HQ’d cloud services provider Dynamo6, said any focus on the regions is ‘A positive thing’. “There is a range of tech awareness in the regions which depends on the clients you are working with; anything that helps business owners not only become aware of what is out there, but also who is using it, helps build confidence to themselves adopt it.”

In his experience, there is a ‘delay’ of around a year between adoption of technology in big centres and in the regions.

Central to improved adoption of technology, Matich added, is the increased availability of UFB connectivity, for which has praise for the government. “Particularly for education, with the likes of Network4Learning, but also for business, this sort of connectivity levels the playing field. It enables remote working, it no longer matters where you are, and it makes access to the same level of technology and services equal.”

Muller added that there will be a focus on the rural community, with the Farming 2020 event one of the showcase events.  “Agtech is one of New Zealand’s fastest growing, most exciting innovation sectors. It’s an area where we can truly say we’re leading the world; Farming 2020 will showcase the best and most inventive NZ Agtech,” he said.

Another event will be the Talking Tech Everywhere podcast where popular tech podcast, Access Granted, will take to the road for Techweek’17, which Muller said will travel the length of the country over the course of the week, interviewing tech founders, inventors and tech industry personalities.

“We will have many other major events embracing the academic and manufacturing communities, the design sector, health and education sectors bringing communities together to share ideas and experience on how they are making the most of tech and grow cool tech companies,” Muller concluded.

NZTech represents the tech sector which employs over 100,000 people, makes up eight percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and contributes over $6.3 billion in exports. Organisations interested in participating in Techweek can register expressions of interest page at www.techweek.co.nz.