Tech hui helps win over school kids to IT careers

Technology used to be for "freaks and geeks", but high-school students attending a technology hui hosted by Samuel Marsden Collegiate School say the subject has moved up in the cool stakes.

About 200 students attended the hui to learn about technology, sustainability and career opportunities in the field.

Speakers included Trade Me head of databases Matt van Deventer and Idealog publisher Vincent Heeringa.

Shelby Burns, a year-12 student at Saint Catherine's College, says she is considering a career in design.

"I'd like to be using IT and Photoshop and I'm taking a web design class at school. The speakers today have been really good. I've learnt a lot about what I want to do."

Year-13 Samuel Marsden Collegiate School student Claire Cheng says the hui was an eye-opener. "It's been really good. I thought IT was quite limited, but it's actually quite a big part of our world today."

Isobel Kimble, a year-13 student at New Plymouth Girls' High School, says she finds IT a bit boring, but the hui revealed a different side to the discipline. "I take computing as a subject. It's really easy to get good marks, but it's uninspiring. But when you go to things like this, you see what you can do with it."

Mr Heeringa urged students to drop their PlayStations and start to build their own computer games and even businesses. "That's the whole point about the future. You have to construct it for yourself."

Students should look to study a "hard subject", such as IT or chemistry, but also take arts subjects such as history.

"The future is technology, but you need to be able to communicate and tell your story."

Today's high-school students could build solar-powered stadiums in Taiwan or work on the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste city in the United Arab Emirates, he says.

"Computers used to be freakish things that only geeks knew about. Now everybody knows about them."

Nicholas Gadd, a year-12 student at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School Whitby, says it is hard to avoid a career in technology. "It's not so much that I want to, but I feel I'll end up there just because there's a large demand for IT."

- © Fairfax NZ News