Dear Steven

Congratulations on reclaiming the ICT portfolio, I think I now know why you weren’t so keen on having a CTO for New Zealand. I know you have the skills, experience and battle scars to make this area really perform.

I think you now have the unique opportunity to pull it all together, across your portfolios you have all the ingredients required to make us an ICT powerhouse, you’ve got Research, Science and Technology (the areas that do the real R&D in this space & REANNZ – the real telco of the future today) that means access to the real latest thinking (not just what the vendors have to sell today)

With Tertiary Education you’ve got the means to turn that knowledge into skills and then those skills are needed in jobs for our kids (I’ve got two ‘minecraft’ trained budding robotics engineers who’ll be looking for jobs in the next 8-10 years). We need to both build ICT businesses and help all our business get more productive using ICT in smart, creative and effective ways.

Extending the UFB and getting to the nub of the real rural issues will help enormously, this time I’d love to see the true heroes of rural broadband included in the mix, the regional ISP’s are your secret weapon, they literally go the extra mile and are truly local. 

Just pulling together those threads will create great synergies and the team you’ll be able to assemble in your office and at your ministries can really make a difference.

And TUANZ is here to help, we don’t always agree but we are focused on the same objectives,  

Can’t wait until we get a chance to share our ideas with you too. 

Chris