⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa, 3 months in...
A roundup of recent tech and innovation developments in New Zealand plus book coverage so far
Kia ora,
It’s now just over 3 months since the digital launch of my book ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa at the amazing Tūranga library building in Ōtautahi and over 1 month since we began shipping the paperback edition. Time flies, eh…
I thought it’s time to do a quick catchup of what’s happened since then.
How to get your copy of ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa
A reminder that the book is free for anyone to download (in greyscale PDF format) - get your download link from https://ffwd.nz.
You can also purchase the full-colour, high-resolution, 600-page digital PDF version (NZ$10) or the paperback edition (NZ$75+shipping, includes the colour PDF) from https://ffwd.nz.
A select few independent bookstores in Aotearoa are also stocking it as well🤩:
And quite a few public libraries have been getting the physical book as well, so do ask at your local library whether they have it in yet.
📈New Zealand tech and innovation roundup
First off, here’s a curation of links to articles, commentary and social media I’ve been tracking in the last three months, mostly related to New Zealand tech and innovation and/or relevant to the themes in the book. A few ups, but more downs, unfortunately…
Digital cash when?
Te Pūtea Matua / Reserve Bank of New Zealand opened a Consultation on a Digital currency for New Zealand - the consultation runs until 26th July:
“The Reserve Bank of New Zealand - Te Pūtea Matua is exploring a central bank digital currency. We’re calling it “digital cash”.
It would be the first digital form of New Zealand currency backed by the government and available to the public. Physical cash in banknotes and coins will still be available.
Digital cash would be private, secure, and trusted – the Reserve Bank would not control or see how you spend your money.“
(Way back 2021 I provided a submission to the Aotearoa Parliamentary Inquiry on Cryptocurrencies which urged acceleration on this.)
“This submission…emphasises a more optimistic view of the potential for Aotearoa from actively participating in the explosion of decentralised financial technology innovation which is happening around the world….I suggest that a suitable name for New Zealand’s new Central Bank Digital Currency might be the “Aotearoa Tāra”. Tethered 1:1 to the NZ$:”
Sinking lid on a digital public service?
IT spending cuts in central government agencies have been under the spotlight as part of the overall 6.5%-7.5% reduced spending targets. GCDO Paul James is in charge of a new IT standardisation cost-savings programme across government. He’s characteristically bullish…
“We expect that will save tens of millions of dollars in the short to medium term and much more over the longer term"
…but while government departments maintain their autonomy to pick and choose their own IT and data solutions, GCDO really only has a carrot not a stick. My 2¢: a complete service-first digital, data and AI re-architecture of government services is likely required to achieve the cost-saving outcomes envisioned…
(Not to over-trivialise the problem, but you could probably use the new Claude 3.5 to write a comprehensive open source Web UI, API and middleware layer for all of government and accelerate the whole thing to an open-source alpha release in just a week… maybe some of us should JFDI.)
Meanwhile, more failing traditional government enterprise IT system projects have been jerked to a halt:
A failing Oranga Tamariki IT overhaul left social workers without access to some information
DIA terminated its birth, death and marriage registrations IT project after spending $millions
Compare and contrast: One month earlier Samoa announced its Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system based upon the open source OpenCRVS software.
Same old intractable complexity inside the Wellington machine… too many legacy systems accumulating technical debt, blinkered risk aversion leading to not enough innovation to pay it off, leading to expensive and risky projects to fix, rinse and repeat… and without any real deep understanding of the technical details among the politicians supposedly in charge. Will cutting budgets alone fix it? Yeah right…
An AI public service?
One potential direction worth considering: Callaghan Innovation CEO Stefan Korn asks how can Aotearoa leapfrog traditional digital transformation and go straight to an AI-based public service?
"So how do we channel the same energy in New Zealand to quickly shift to an AI transformation in the public sector? The shift to an AI-based public service could be compared to banking or fixed net telephony infrastructure which many African countries leapfrogged and went straight to mobile / peer-to-peer systems (and thereby saving trillions of dollars of infrastructure cost that would become obsolete within a few decades)."
Budget (cuts) 2024
This year’s first annual budget from the new coalition government seemed devoid of any substantial aspiration for our country’s future. Whatever the political narrative being spun, it’s plain that prioritising tax breaks for landlords in the midst of a housing- and cost-of-living crisis correlates directly with record numbers of people leaving the country.
Meanwhile Bernard Hickey reports that:
“per-capita GDP has now fallen 4.3% from its peak, which is more than the 4.2% contraction over the seven quarters of per-capita recession seen during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/09”.
Not a lot of positive news on the horizon right now with these trends looking like they will continue for the foreseeable (although at least flat / lowering GDP is a signal of lower carbon emissions… so maybe a silver lining?).
FWIW my take right now is that the nation seems to be completely divided on any form of common vision on what kind of country we want in future — and it’s likely that this division is, at least in part, a deliberate strategy to reduce social cohesion from certain sectors of political influence. IMO the next generation of political leaders need to drive towards positive-sum consensus if they hope to gain any traction whatsoever…Peter Griffin reviewed the tech and science allocations this year’s budget: Deck chairs, Titanic, and Budget 2024, with a nod to my tweet at the time:
It’s grim reading with cuts across the board and absolutely zero indication of what might replace it:
“Is that it?? Yes, indeed, that is it. Seemingly no funding for digital skills training, digital equity, or rural broadband.
So businesses, NGOs, educational providers, start-ups, and students will have to do more with less, be resourceful, and innovative, and forge on with their plans and goals, in many cases without the support of the government. There is some truth to the idea that lean times make for more resilient and viable new ideas and businesses. That’s about the best spin I can put on it.
The cuts in areas like science and innovation also suggest that the Government didn’t have confidence that what was already on the cards for spending, wasn’t going to deliver the desired outcomes. That will require ministers and ministerial officials to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that will actually work.
At worst, we’ve gutted our science sector, lost any momentum to take a more cohesive approach in the tech space, and killed digital infrastructure projects that will damage efforts to digitise government. Think about that when you are sipping on the extra three or four trim flat whites per week your tax cuts will buy you.”
(In contrast, the Australian government recently invested nearly A$1Bn in a quantum computing startup. Sigh.)
A certain AI artist friend of mine kindly obliged:
And also cartoons By Jim was absolutely on point:
Ultimately it seems plain so far that the current lot just don’t *get* science, tech and innovation as a driver of economic value… preferring instead simpler, extractive industries and narratives from the past instead. If I was being cynical…
ANYWAY…on the subject of increasing economic value, here’s a clip from my recent talk to Te Hono (see below): What does “Doubling Export Value In 10 Years” actually look like? I have an evolving theory that value is correlated with the information density of the products and services we deliver to the world… in which case, where do we want to play in future?
Finally, on a more aspirational note… The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment released an excellent new report Going with the grain: Changing land uses to fit a changing landscape:
“We need to change the way we use our land if we are to hold the line on environmental quality, let alone improve it.”
The publication includes some excellent interactive maps illustrating land use change to 2060 for two catchment areas, Mataura in Southland and Wairau in Northland. I can get behind this…
Finally, in breaking news, the InterIslander ferry Aratere was grounded near Waitohi/ Picton on Friday after suffering a steering failure. One month after a new steering system was installed… was this a software fault?
⏩Speaking events
I’ve done several events since March talking about the book, here’s a roundup:
5th March Digital Book Release Event - Ōtautahi Christchurch, hosted by CanterburyTech, included a panel discussion on the Future of New Zealand with Sam Ragnarsson, Kate Sutton and Roger Dennis.
12th March Digital Book Release - Tāhuna Queenstown, hosted by Liger Academy
10 April Digital Book Release - Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, hosted by New Zealand.ai. (Watch the recording below:)
I’ve also been keeping up my usual AI and emerging tech keynoe presentations at quite a few industry conferences and online events. In particular, here’s my recent Te Hono speaker series webinar a couple of weeks ago in full:
(Quick plug:)
Finally my colleague Sam Ragnarsson — whose amazing AI art lifts the book to a whole other level — joined me for a Memia webinar last week to discuss the AI tools and workflows he uses.
⏩Media coverage
Always fun trying to cross over to the mainstream… 😅 Some media highlights so far:
Caffeine Magazine
How we can leverage emerging technologies for a brighter future
(From September last year when I talked about some of the themes in the book at the 2023 Canterbury Tech Summit. )
BusinessDesk
Business Of Tech Podcast
Web3nz.xyz
NZ Business Magazine
Here comes the future, ready or not (Interview with Glenn Baker)
(A couple more podcasts are in production… reach out if you’d like to do an interview).
⏩Reader Testimonials
Also some very kind quotes from readers:
“We live in exponential times - and Ben wrote the playbook…[an] extraordinary effort to collate an incredible amount of amazing content on all things exponential…this 600-page encyclopaedia exponençiale is a landmark achievement and will serve many of us in Aotearoa as a reference guide…“ — Stefan Korn, CEO, Callaghan Innovation
(Actually his full quote implies that I need to put out a 2400-page Second Edition in 2025…yikes!)🫣
"A techno-optimist’s manifesto...Ben Reid may be 50 years ahead of most of us in his thinking, but ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa presents a compelling case for why we urgently need to catch up.” — Peter Griffin, BusinessDesk
"New Zealand’s technology futurist, Ben Reid has recently published a remarkable book ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa, sharing his multi-year research on emerging technology and the impact and implications on New Zealanders, our society and governance." — Justin Flitter, NewZealand.ai
"The hive mind of Ben Reid has just released this cacophony on technology, natural capital and vision...his "10 missions and 100 technology solutions to ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa" are a worthy inspection of decades of his global experience⚡️" — Alex McCall, RegenerateNZ
(Please feel free to add your own thoughts on the book by sharing this post and/or in the comments below!)
OK that’s a wrap - I’ll try to put these ⏩ roundup posts out monthly from now on, let me know if you find them useful and what you agree/disagree on!
Thanks for reading!
ngā mihi
Ben