UNIVERSITIES need to work closer with industry in Wellington if the city is to take advantage of ICT and Green technology.

The gap between teaching and reality is a major issue according to a submission to Wellington’s draft economic development strategy.

ICT and Green technology were two of the main themes that emerged from 45 public submissions to the strategy.

The draft specifically outlines the importance of digital industry to Wellington:

“Wellington is also growing world-class firms and specialised skills in the creative industries, including film, design, digital animation and post production, gaming, IT solutions, software development and professional services.”

Wellington City Council Strategy and Policy Committee is this week considering the public consultation documents.

Able Technology’s submission highlighted the importance of training and the cost of jumping through hoops to get incubator funding for projects using the latest technologies.

The company designs applications for the web and mobile phones.

Able managing director Carl Penwarden says it is hard for the universities to keep up with the most recent advances in technology.

“While they can’t teach all the newest technology they need to work harder at working with the industry.”

He says his company is involved in the Wellington internship programme and has discussed with Victoria University the possibility of getting involved in lectures on the latest technologies like mobile and web applications.

Able Technology is a small business but with only eight staff earlier in the year, they plan to have 12 staff employed through internships by the end of next year.

There is a Wellington internship programme founded by called summer of tech which is running for its fifth year, which matches tertiary students with participating IT businesses.

Mr Penwarden says apart from a little bit of money from Grow Wellington, the local industry has funded and run the internship programme itself.

However the biggest problem his company has is getting enough people with the right skills, so they are looking overseas.

“We could probably double our participation in that [internships  programme], and still struggle to keep up.”

He thinks the council should be more involved in the internship programme, as the ICT industry is “absolutely” going to be more important for Wellington in future.

New Zealand has a long record of high-tech software development, and there is a hotbed of that in Wellington, he says.

The submission to the draft plan from Victoria University made specific mention of the university’s strength in digital technology and applied digital engineering, but also points to a need for more collaboration.

“There seems to be broad agreement that there is a lack of shared knowledge and coordination around the many innovative and research activities occurring throughout the city, and that the city’s collective innovative capacity is not being fully harnessed,” The Victoria submission says.

A submission was also made by a group of Victoria University masters students.

Their submission underlines the importance of information and communication technology infrastructure and Green IT in Wellington.

“Future ICT will play a critical role in maintaining and increasing the benefits of living and doing business,” it says.

The Gibson Group outlined in their submission the need in Wellington for attracting talent and allowing successful businesses to build on each other.

An independent submission from Cliff Turner of Khandallah noted the potential for combining Wellington’s expertise in science and IT for environmental data collection.

The feedback of the strategy was generally supportive of the plan, with only two of the 45 submissions at odds with the Council’s current draft.

It lists a number of things for council to work on, such as attracting long-haul direct flights from Asia, building on Creative HQ and attracting more international students.

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