Tech Step Kāpiti

Thirteen Year 10-13 students recently attended the Tech Step Kāpiti Careers event at Kāpiti College. This event was organised by the Kāpiti Chamber of Commerce and the Kāpiti Tech cluster in conjunction with KCDC to help promote tech as a career to young people and give them some exposure to what it entails.

Pera Barrett - founder of Shoebox Christmas, and Katherine Corich - founder of Sysdoc, were the guest speakers. Both had interesting personal journeys that they shared, neither had tech backgrounds but talked about the part technology played in their journeys and success. Pera spoke of the importance of aroha, values and whakapapa and how you can overcome adversity and use it to contribute to something you feel strongly about and make a difference in society. Katherine's five tips included: Be Yourself - 'Try' to do what you love - Take small steps towards your goals - Work out how you can create your ideal future - Nurture your 'purpose'.

Students could choose from two interactive sessions during the day. Here's what students said about the sessions that they attended:

 "I really enjoyed doing the jack box tech stuff as this was interesting to play around with and problem solve. It was also enlightening to learn about some of the potential ways to pursue careers in the tech industry".

"I quite enjoyed the JackBoard and figuring out how we could use it. From LED lights to driving laser scanning vehicles, it was very interesting. Btw the food was great".

"I enjoyed learning that the lectures had a common theme of technology not being the star of the show but it being a tool to achieve your goals which I found interesting.  Some of them weren't IT majors but had just used technology to better someone's/their company or someone else's life in some way".