Kiwi CIOs and Govt to strategise at tech summit

NZTech is teaming up with the Government to host a tech summit that will look at key issues to improve service and delivery to consumers.

According to NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller, about 40% of all the money spent in New Zealand on ICT technology is spent by the government, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Muller says the government has recognised that in order to deliver better public services they need to use technology to transform the way they interact with people, organisations and across government.

"NZTech is bringing together the leaders and chief information officers across government to collaborate and share innovative ways they have partnered with the tech sector to help transform and deliver better to and for the public," he explains.

"In a recognition of the importance of balancing the cost of technology deployment with the longer term financial benefits that transformation of government can bring, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English will open the summit," Muller says.

"Leaders from the New Zealand tech sector and the government will discuss and share success strategies for successful deployments of technology, of innovative uses of technology and of cross department collaboration to improve people's experiences.

Muller says underlying the government's drive to deliver better public services are targets to reduce welfare dependency and crime, to support vulnerable children, boost employment and make it easier to interact with government.

Across all of these, technology is recognised as an enabler that will help the government to improve and transform, he says.

"To accelerate the transformation shared learning and collaboration is essential," Muller explains.

"The savings across government and the society could be enormous. Since 2012, better use of technology has delivered a 16% reduction in the reported effort in dealing with government departments.

Keynote presentations will include the chief executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, David Smol; Deputy Commissioner of Transformation at Inland Revenue, Greg James; and the Australian chief technology officer, John Sheridan.