Keynotes and Invited presenters

Day 2 - Wednesday 7th October

9-10am

Technologist Presentations

Dr Ian Mackay - Heinz Wattie's Limited

Dr Ian Mackay is the Product Development Manager for Heinz Wattie's Limited in New Zealand. He manages a team of 45 product development technologists, engineers and managers, who are responsible for developing new, and improving existing, products and processes for all the products made by Wattie's in NZ.

Of the company's 1,500 full time staff, approximately 80 have tertiary qualifications in science, technology or engineering.

The company produces around 2,000 different frozen, chilled and shelf stable products, including well known brands like Wattie's, Heinz, Oak, Eta, Craig's, Weight Watcher's, Champ and Chef. As well as supplying the New Zealand market, they also export to Australia, Japan, USA, South Africa and the UK, with an annual turnover of nearly NZ$1 billion.

Ian will talk about the challenges facing a food processor in NZ in the 21st century, including calls for country of origin labelling, additives, organics, GE, food safety, nutrition issues, competition with biofuels, rapidly changing consumer demands, the globalisation of the food industry, and a worldwide shortage of good quality graduate food scientists, technologists and engineers.

Pat Kane - Furnware

Pat Kane from Furnware, the Hastings company which designs and manufactures Bodyfurn classroom furniture, is responsible for conducting the pre-design user research for the company. Pat will talk about the issues Furnware took into consideration when designing furniture for schools, including fit for purpose, ergonomic considerations, easily cleaned, graffiti proof, environmentally friendly materials, cost, stackable.

Rachel Landon - Hastings Wastewater Treatment

Futureintech Ambassador Rachel Landon was the Project Manager for the recently completed upgrade to the Hastings District Council wastewater treatment plant at East Clive. Rachel is a local girl; she attended Central Hawke's Bay College in Waipukurau, then completed her civil engineering degree at Canterbury University.

The Hastings Wastewater Treatment project was partly driven by Maori cultural and spiritual concerns over the discharge of human wastes to the sea. This, combined with a willingness by the Council to test the norm, yielded a number of innovative solutions. Rachel will describe these solutions and the challenges the project team faced, including a design team of 30+ engineers from around the world, iwi requirements, soil liquefaction issues, and the innovative solutions the project team developed.

10.30am

Teaching for Progression

In this workshop we well identify the 'step ups' captured in the indicators of progression for the nature of technology, technological knowledge and technological practice. A group of teachers will discuss their experiences of using the indicators. Workshop participants will be supported in exploring how this information can be used effectively to support their teaching of technology in line with the NZC.

Primary and secondary Teachers and Dr Vicki Compton, Ange Compton, Cliff Harwood and Selena Hinchco.