The Digital Technologies Industry Transformation Plan (ITP) is about creating the right conditions for the tech sector to grow and excel. The ITP is currently being developed in partnership between industry and government, with NZTech being the lead industry partner. The draft of the ITP is scheduled to be released in September.
The ITP has seven workstreams: Growing more exporting firms; Skills; New Zealand’s Tech and Innovation Story; Maori Tech Success; Procurement; The AI Strategy and Data Driven Innovation (DDI).
The creation of the DDI workstream was in response to engagement with the sector, which revealed the need for greater access to data in order to create new products and services, to drive innovation and to accelerate the application of Artificial Intelligence across multiple sectors of our economy.
Government’s research into the issues included interviewing data scientists and businesses as well as undertaking desk research. From this, adiscussion document was produced that outlined the problems and identified potential solutions. It was clear that in order to support greater access to data for the sector, we have to take the Data Driven Innovation (DDI) message beyond the Digital Technologies sector itself.
In 2015, the Innovation Partnership undertook research that indicated that adoption of DDI in New Zealand was around five years behind that in other leading countries, such as the United States. A prominent theme was that, though New Zealand organisations have a reasonable understanding of data and its use, relatively few have embraced it as a basis for improved decision-making at the upper management and board levels. This poor understanding of the value of data and the value of sharing data means that adoption of data driven technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) would likely be constrained.
The objective of the DDI workstream is: The economic value of data is widely understood and appreciated across all sectors. The adoption and use of data-driven technologies and AI helps to fuel innovation aiding the shift of New Zealand’s economy to be more productive, sustainable and inclusive.
In order to deliver on the objective of the workstream, a primary initial area of focus has been identified: to raise awareness with businesses of the value of data. A secondary, longer term focus is to consider the merit of a national digital Twin (NDT), which would, among other things, enable greater access to different data.
A partnership is being formed with the i4 Accelerator to deliver the education part of the workstream, with a pilot across multiple regional hubs planned for the 2021/22 year.
Interested in finding out more?
Please attend our upcoming Connect Event in Wellington on Thursday 5 August. You’ll hear from i4 Accelerator, Program Director Malcolm Fraser, who will be discussing the DDI education pilot and how New Zealand can grow its data driven economy.
Sam Daish, Head of AI and Data Science at Qrious and Graeme Muller, CEO of NZTech will also be speaking at the event.
Ngā mihi,
The team at the NZ IoT Alliance
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