Wintec Annual Stakeholders Event

Wintec Stakeholders Event 2016

The Create Hosting office is located in a co-working environment (SODA Inc.) in Wintec House, so we were invited to attend the annual Wintec stakeholders event on Thursday, 7 July.  The early start of 7am was softened with coffee and croissants, followed by a buffet breakfast after the presentation.  Food aside, the early start was worthwhile.

Mark Flowers, Wintec Chief Executive, delivered an interesting talk on the challenges facing Wintec and the future of tertiary education.  Wintec is making great progress in their sector and it’s exciting for us to have some involvement with such an innovative organisation, if only by means of an office on their campus. It brings with it a great resource of innovative students to our doorstep.

The future is not what it used to be.

Mark started his talk with the above quote to highlight the need for tertiary education to cater to the needs of future job markets.  The skills and jobs of today are not the same ones that are likely to be required in the future – driverless car mechanic, anyone?  A World Economic Forum report found that 35% of workplace skills that are currently considered important will change.  Skills such as emotional intelligence, creativity and complex problem solving will become increasingly important – see the top ten list here http://www.nztech.org.nz/the-10-job-skills-you-will-need-by-2020/.

Following on from Mark’s presentation, a paper put together by the Institute for the Future called Future Work 2020 is an interesting read. It certainly has strong parallels with requirements for a technology focussed business.

At Create Hosting, we certainly see the need for an increasing range of skills in order to provide clients with a premium product to meet their expectations.  Out of the box solutions no longer cut it, and complex problem solving, creativity and emotional intelligence is becoming every day practice.  We look forward to seeing how tertiary institutions tailor their courses so that graduates enter jobs with some practical experience and with the essential skills required to work in the fast paced world of web development and e-commerce.