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News archive 2006-2009
2010 media releases
NZi3 building - award nominations/winners (January)
New NZi3 Director (June)
We are pleased to announce that Hamish House has been confirmed in the role as Director of NZi3, reporting to Dr Nigel Johnson, Director R&I.
Hamish will continue the good work he has been performing since the inception of NZi3, initially as Business Development Manager and more recently as Acting Director, building and maintaining relationships both internally across the University and within New Zealand’s ICT sector. He will continue to lead our efforts to build NZi3’s reputation as the main hub for ICT research and capability development in New Zealand.
We are also pleased to report that the NZi3 Foundation Partners of HP, IBM, Jade and Tait recently re-affirmed their commitment to NZi3 as a national centre. So now is a good time to update you on what NZi3 is about.
NZi3 part of Research & Innovation, but retains own identity
In late February, following an internal UC review, NZi3 - the national ICT Innovation Institute - made a smooth transition into Research & Innovation (R&I). Given that R&I has the purpose of “Connecting UC’s research with the world”, and NZi3 having responsibility for a specific subset of that function in the ICT domain, this move was logical. Whilst NZi3 retains its brand and ICT focus, its activities and administration are now more effectively supported by the larger resources of R&I.
NZi3’s objectives and operations
NZi3 provides a particular pathway for establishing links between academia and the ICT sector. It received significant funding from the Government (for the NZi3 building and equipment, through TEC’s Partnerships for Excellence program) and from its Foundation Partners of HP, IBM, Jade, and Tait (for Scholarships, Visiting Experts, Professorial Chairs, Research Contracts and ICT-related equipment). These Partners have recently re-affirmed their commitment to NZi3, and its position as a national centre.
The core purpose stated in the agreement with TEC is “to step up tertiary education sector capability in order to meet the needs of the national ICT sector”, and this is to be achieved by delivering the following fundamental outputs:
· increased numbers of research postgraduates in ICT
· access to world-class knowledge and resources, and
· entrepreneurial environment for staff and students.
The environment created by NZi3 is expected to:
· foster better engagement between researchers and industry, including multinationals
· provide ICT companies with up to date expertise.
· attract NZ and overseas students to an ICT career in NZ
· produce increased numbers of entrepreneurial graduates
· generate new technologies for start up companies
To be successful NZi3 must meet certain obligations of its contract with the government, and so it needs to record and tally up figures related to UC’s postgraduate enrolments and research income in the ICT sector. These obligations include:
Income from industry partners (more than $1,123,524 in 2010)
Intangible value delivered to the ICT industry, in the opinion of that industry (60% of surveyed respondents to confirm that linkages have been valuable to them)
Increased numbers of postgraduate enrolments in ICT related disciplines (in 2010, 45 more than in 2005 or 209 EFTS)
10 postgrads enrolled in courses with an entrepreneurial focus.
Five industry directed projects initiated each year.
and
Active financial support from at least 3 multinational partners.
We look forward to the continuing support of staff in ICT related disciplines to meet these objectives, to make NZi3 a successful flagship for the ICT activities of UC and its collaborators, and to fulfil its role as a national ICT leader.
The ICT activities associated with NZi3 were to be organised along industry linked research themes, to be agreed with the Partners from time-to-time. Initially, these included BioEngineering, Nanotechnology, Human Interface Technology, Wireless, Database Applications, Geospatial, and Software Engineering. While many of these activities operate as research groups or Centres within Colleges, often with their own identity and branding, they are still able to cluster under the NZi3 banner.
The NZi3 model could be summarised as a pathway for connections between the ICT industry sector and UC’s ICT expertise, supported by national and international collaborators, where research students and postdocs work on industry driven projects, often alongside industry researchers, near to their academic supervisors.
The NZi3 National ICT Innovation Institute building at the University of Canterbury has been officially recognised as a multiple award winner.
- New Zealand Green Building Council: 5 star education design award
- Designers Institute of NZ Best Awards: Gold award for interior design
- New Zealand Institute of Architects: Canterbury Architecture award
- New Zealand Institute of Architects / Resene: colour award
- Illumination Engineering Society (IES) Australia and New Zealand: EECA low energy lighting award
- Illumination Engineering Society (IES) Australia and New Zealand: 'National Lighting Design award
The building is also currently being judged for other awards (results pending) and was also shortlisted for the World architecture awards which were judged at the end of 2009 in Barcelona.
NZi3's founding partners are Hewlett-Packard New Zealand, IBM, Jade Software Corporation, Tait Electronics and the University of Canterbury.