In March of last year, Judith Collins was but a senior member of parliament for the opposition. Today, she is a senior member of the government, with more ministerial positions than any other member of the National Party government.

Collins spent a significant amount of her time in opposition learning about NZs tech sector, and wooing its members.

It was in March when Peter Griffin spoke to her to ask her thoughts on tech in NZ and what she would focus on if she made it into cabinet, which we played in our first-ever episode.

Listening back, one of the most interesting things is thinking about just how far we’ve come with artificial intelligence in less than a year. You can also hear the beginnings of one of Collins’ other portfolios – digitising government.

With the new Government’s first full year in power ahead, it’s a great time for us to replay this interview with the now-minister for space and see what could be in store for tech in 2024.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jackson Henry is an Australian ethical or white hat hacker who we spoke to last year.

We only featured him briefly in episode 29 because he was guesting on a lot of shows, but our interview with him was a little different.

He spoke a little more widely about his career path and how he went from cheating at video games to being a part of the white hat team that breached the United Nations

He also delved into what cybersecurity means at different sizes of business, and how enterprises can entice ethical hackers to test their own systems.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in July of 2023, now last year, Rocket Lab finalised its plans for recovering and reusing engines for its rockets.

Founder and CEO Peter Beck spared some time to chat about what that means for the company.

Plus, he spoke about how he saw the space industry in Aotearoa New Zealand, and where he thought we stood on the global stage.

Since then, Beck hosted the National Party’s pre-election space policy announcement, and the industry has made some significant strides.

Listening back to the interview is a timely reminder of the value the industry can bring to NZ’s economy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Clare is the founding and managing partner at Clare Capital, a boutique investment bank that releases a regular tech insights newsletter.

We chose this conversation to feature because not only does Mark offer fantastic insights about listed companies and the public market, but goes wider than that.

He talks about the private capital market, about the value that a strong NZX can bring to the country, the benefits of selling to offshore companies, and what he sees as the industry’s biggest weakness.

Spoiler – it is not a lack of technical talent.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's episode 33, the final full episode for the year. To put a bow on what has been a full on year of tech news, we quickly recap the biggest stories from 2023 from across the world, and in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Then we speak to Merja Myllylahti, a senior lecturer at AUT and co-director of the universities research centre for journalism, media and democracy (JMAD). She recently published her book From Papers to Platform, which scrutinises how major digital platforms exert ever-growing influence over news, journalism, our everyday lives, personal rights and access to information.

Merjia shares her view on why it's so important for news media to break away from reliance on Big Tech and social media platforms and learn how to be independent operators once more.

Reading list

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we look back at the NZ tech stock market in 2023 to get a sense of where priorities lie for those investing their capital into the industry, and which stocks to watch in 2024.

We speak to three financial markets specialists, Clare Capital’s founder Mark Clare, and Joshua Dale and Stephen Ridgewell from Craigs Investment Partners to hear about the positives and negatives of higher rates and constrained capital for tech.

Plus, they share what they expect to see as things start to warm up again next year.

We also discuss the NZ winners and losers on the NASDAQ and how AI has helped boost the big US stocks.

Reading list

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Artificial intelligence exploded onto the scene in a major way in 2023, establishing foundations for a level of disruption that we don't yet fully understand.

In this episode, we speak to Simply Privacy's Frith Tweedie and Frankly AI's Matt Ensor about what we saw in the AI market this year, and where we might see it go in 2024.

We also share our thoughts about the new government's ministerial make-up, and what that might mean for NZ's tech industry.

Reading list

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Easy Crypto CEO and co-founder Janine Grainger joins us to explain why she and her team decided to launch a locally owned wallet, and the NZDD stablecoin pegged to the NZ dollar, and backed 1:1 by funds in the bank.

Plus, we discuss the biggest tech story of the year, the ousting of OpenAI founding CEO Sam Altman, and why the news should matter to Kiwis and their businesses.

Note: When Ben said artificial generative intelligence, he meant artifical general intelligence.

Reading list

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Toby Littin features this week’s episode to talk about the global success of Parkable, a company that started in 2015 as a way to connect drivers with people with spare carparks, and has grown into an international parking management platform with the likes of Meta as a customer.

Littin speaks to the changes a company goes through when it moves from start up to scale up, and whether it’s possible to remain a NZ-based company in the current investment climate.

We also discuss the latest tech news including the 18-year-old ethical hacker promoting good security practice for small businesses, and how Tokelau, a nation of 15,000 people, became a central to the world of international cybercrime.

Reading list

Subscribe on iHeart Radio or wherever you get podcasts.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Peter talks to stalwart of both the supermarket and telecommunications industries, Ernie Newman.

In the early 2000s, the government intervened to ensure that the monopoly that then-Telecom had on broadband internet industry didn’t last long. What can we learn from those efforts and where should we be putting out hopes for disruption? 

We also chat about the latest tech news including, the governments facial recognition failures, how much big tech is spending on cloud capacity, and OpenAI’s new GPT marketplace.

Subscribe on iHeart Radio or wherever you get podcasts.

Reading list

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.