A diverse range of sessions, including three international keynote speakers, have been lined up for the third annual ITEX conference today at the Viaduct Events Centre in Auckland. Opening the conference is Jeffrey Cole from the University of Southern California (USC). He has been at the forefront of media and communication technology policy issues in both the United States and internationally for the past 25 years.
He has testified before Congress on media related topics and spoken at numerous conferences on communications issues. His long-term study on the impact of computers, the internet and related technologies on families and society has been running in more than 30 countries. The objective is to coordinate a truly international effort to understand how both industrialised and non-industrialised countries are affected by the use of information technology.
The second international keynote speaker is Noah Broadwater, who is chief technology officer at Sesame Workshop (the company behind the children’s programme Sesame Street) - a recognised pioneer in contextual media, open source, virtualisation, and cloud computing.
Aside from leading successful strategic IT initiatives, Broadwater advises on consumer-focused products, giving him a unique perspective on the impact of the consumerisation of IT.
Bookending the day is another USC academic Chris Mattmann, who also works as a senior computer scientist at NASA.
Also speaking at ITEX is Jamie Fitzgerald, who with fellow adventurer Kevin Biggar, was the first Kiwi to reach the South Pole unsupported on foot, attracting media attention worldwide as they implemented a ‘business-like’ approach to their 52-day expedition. Fitzgerald will talk about how they used technology on their epic journey.
In addition to the keynote speakers, there will be sessions on near field communication, creating a viable mobile strategy for your company, enterprise collaboration and data sovereignty.
To follow the conference on Twitter got to #itexnz. A list of twitter handles for speakers and participants can be found here.
At 6pm this evening the winners of the ITEX Computerworld Awards 2012 will be announced.
The finalists in each category are:
ICT Project of the Year
Fulton Hogan for the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT), which was commissioned by the government and tasked with rebuilding Christchurch’s horizontal infrastructure within five years.
The New Zealand Transport Agency’s Business Continuity Programme, which completed the migration of its registry systems to a Windows platform.
The Rugby World Cup 2011 IT & T Programme, which provided management, data (WAN/LAN), wireless, security, voice, mobile, hardware/software procurement and the business applications that were required to manage the event at all tournament venues.
ICT Manager of the Year, sponsored by Candle
Kausalia Apparao, a business analyst manager who has worked at Sealord Group for nine years, and specifically as manager of the IS team for the last 18 months. She has five direct reports. Prior to working in IS she was involved in the company’s ERP implementation project.
Kausalia Apparao
Colin Dixon, who is a product manager, financial crime, for Jade Software’s new division, the Wynyard Group. As part of the Jade Leadership Programme, Dixon has driven the implementation of lean practices – streamlined practices and process within the business to create a more productive and efficient working environment.
David Scott, who is head of business technology and transformation at Z Energy leading a team of 30. He was the programme manager for Z Energy’s Enhance project, which was joint-winner at last year’s ITEX Computerworld Awards.
David Scott
Software Developer of the Year
Scott Fletcher who joined Aura RedEye Security in 2010 as a security consultant and trainer and has expanded the penetration testing services team while also refining and delivering security training courses for individuals and large corporate clients.
Scott Fletcher
Keith Patton from Marker Metro, a self-taught software developer who has written code for many high profile companies, including Telecom, The New Zealand Herald, Trade Me, Air New Zealand, Express Couriers, Yellow NZ and NZTE.
Keith Patton
Steve Wiltshire from FINNZ who has been software developer for 30 years. He is is chief developer at FINNZ, which produces n-tier web based solutions in C# and ASP.NET with SQL Server databases. For fun, Wiltshire says he writes 2D games in Java and is currently coding Breakout.
Steve Wiltshire
ITEX is hosted by Fairfax Media, IDC and Conferenz.