South Auckland youth to catch of glimpse of their future at South Techweek XLR8

South Auckland’s youth will be able to catch of a glimpse of their future at the South Techweek XLR8 event next week in Manukau. 

Hundreds of school pupils will converge on the Vodafone Events Centre to try out a range of cutting-edge technologies; including virtual reality headsets, robotics, 3D printing, game app coding and an innovative crowd-sourcing platform, as part of the nationwide #Techweek19 festival. 

In collaboration with ATEED, Te Puni Kōkiri and Auckland Transport, Te Roopu Waiora with the support of The Southern Initiative (TSI) is hosting this event for a second year.  

TSI‘s Michelle Wilson says the inaugural South Techweek XLR8 in 2018 was a huge success, engaging over a thousand students in the technologies that will shape our future, and she expects this coming event to be even better.  

“We want to harness the potential of our tamariki, rangatahi and whānau haua (disabilities whanau) in the digital innovation space, as a means to providing an avenue for them to learn, participate and excite them in the world of technology and the future of work.

“There is an innate Māori and Pacific innovation gene that we inherited from our tīpuna (ancestors) since the time our tīpuna arrived to these shores and so we believe an event like this can be a catalyst to excite, inspire and provide a portal into this sector.”

Among the amazing range of activations on show, TSI’s Youth Innovator Ayla Hoeta will be sharing with pupils more about the ground-breaking crowd-sourcing online platform called UpSouth that she runs.

UpSouth provides a safe place for youth to share ideas, express creativity and provide insights on issues that matter to them, while earning money at the same time.   

UpSouth has won a number of awards for its ability to engage with young people, but Ayla says despite its success it still has the potential to expand. 

“We already have over 3400 users and have distributed around $50,000 in micropayments to our members but we are only scratching the surface of this platform’s potential in how we amplify the amazing creativeness in our community.” 

Other activations at the event include;

- an Auckland Transport programme teaching road safety through the power of Virtual Reality

- robotics presentations by Accelerating Aotearoa

- demonstrations on the limitless potential of 3D pens and printers

- a highly interactive activation run by one of New Zealand’s leading IT companies Datacom – which will include lightsabers and VR and Mix reality applications

- a Code Avengers activation space where participants can have a go at using computer code to make games, apps, or to draw pictures.

Check out https://techweek.co.nz/whats-on/2019/southtechweek19-xlr8-494/ for further details.