NZ ITP conference - part of day 2

In Wellington today to do a short presentation on the 3d project as part of presentations in number of 'innovation for industry ' projects. The conference is for management and council members of institutes of technology and polytechnics in NZ.

Managed to get in in time for the last keynote of the morning from two industry representatives, Frank Dean (service manager) Gen-i Southland and Davey McDonald ( owner and manager) from Ortega Fish Shack. Both provide employers' and ex-students' perspective on vocational education's contribution to individual's life aspirations. Both are successful and were supportive of flexible delivery options, allowing integration of work and study. Appreciated ITP 's small class sizes, hands on learning activities, industry relevance of learning content and assessments and tutor's currency with industry. Both spoke realistically about their vocational choices, parent's influences on career choice and support for completing qualifications part-time while working full-time. Recommended need to keep up with play with regards to technology, approaches, collaboration, contribution of technology to extending learning and workplace connections for students.

Innovation presentations in 2 concurrent streams with 5 projects presented in each. There were more projects submitted than time allocated so several other projects will have presentations featured on conference website.

I attend the ones in the stream I am presenting in.

First up, Dr. Juan Pellegrino, also from CPIT who presents on 'supporting international expansion of SMEs'. Covered aims, rationale, methods, sme partner, issues and interim findings. Used case study to build narrative and the focus group of academics to study how sme could work through challenges along with linkages to current literature on innovation.

Dr. Ken Simpson and Diana Sharma from Unitec on ' relationships between ITPs and local business sector collaboration' - TEPU - the platform. How to encourage academics and industry to form a bridge. Could take at least 5 years with a report now about 2 years in. At the moment regular monthly meetings and hospitality exchanges at now has a draft collaboration proposal submitted. So build understanding first and then formalize. First up jointly establish a business development capability unit. Either to get better at what they were doing and assist to move into new or unfamiliar. now have 11 objectives to assist businesses to grow and to share institutional infrastructure.

My presentation next, centering around how to leverage the installation of a 3D printer to encourage institution and industry collaboration. Including rationale for project, summary of initial literature review and recommendations from this. Data from pre printer arrival presented along with some data from post printer.

Then from Eastern Institute of Technology with a group of researchers (viticulture Dr. Mark Krasnaw and business Dr Frina Albertyn) on a specialised industry project to reduce rot in vineyards through early non chemical defoliation. Need for outreach with stakeholders, then develop project, implement, analysis of data and dissemination of results and how to encourage uptake of new technology.

Last up, Jimmi Rosa from Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (BOPP) on the development of a elearning tool for dentists. A project initiated by industry for an ITP to design and develop a specific elearning tool to provide information on dental equipment. Reference used from Bakker et al. 2011 and Schindler and Epper, 2003, activity theory (Engestrom) and knowledge reuse (Markus, 2001) to evaluate efficacy of knowledge transfer. Projects involved staff, students and industry partners. Project website http://triohub.com/demo

Off after presentation to fly back to Christchurch so will catch up on several other presentations of interest once they come up on the conference website.