2019 SHIFT Cohorts & Industry Guests

Signal's SHIFT programme is now in its third year, and interest in it continues to grow, as do our cohorts.

At Signal we aim to bring together a diverse and talented cohort of students. This year we are again excited to have cohorts with a wonderful mix of gender, age, ethnicity, degree and professional backgrounds, and of course a wide range of career goals and aspirations.

This year we have students with backgrounds in accounting, sound recording, marketing, IT, linguistics, design, teaching, neuroscience, genetics, and many more.

Academic classes began in late February, and so did our industry engagement activities. Students across both Christchurch and Dunedin studios have been hearing about different tech roles, challenges and achievements of tech startups, undertaking workshops to come up to speed with such things as Design Thinking and Agile methodology, as well as hearing the inspirational career journeys of our guest speakers.

Getting personal and professional insights from our speakers, while also being able to ask them questions about the New Zealand tech sector is truly a priceless experience for our students.

Jason Leong from PocketSmith started his business in his living room, and summed up the unlimited possibilities for New Zealand's tech sector when he said, "We can touch the world from Dunedin and from throughout New Zealand”.

We sure can!

Guest speakers and workshops (so far) have included:

• Chanel O'Brien, Business Development Advisor
  Enterprise Dunedin, Dunedin City Council
• Ian Simpson, CEO
  

  Logic Studio

• Jason Leong, CEO & Co-founder
  PocketSmith

• Rachel Butler, Audacious Manager
  Startup Dunedin

• Jon Foote, Director and Principal Consultant
  Flock Consulting

• IT Roles Workshop
  Claudia Ott & Veronica Liesaputra
  University of Otago
  
  
• Design Thinking Workshop
  Claudia Ott & Veronica Liesaputra
  University of Otago
  
  

• Digital Heritage, Moving drones through EEG signals, Game Designs, Human Computer Interfaces
  University of Otago, Computer Science and Information Science Research Labs.

• Digital Marketing and Personal Branding
  Leanne Ross
  Department of Marketing
  University of Otago
  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leannerossbelfast
  

• Blair Morgan
  Senior Consultant
  Effectus Limited
  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blair-morgan-053b681b/

• Andy Poulsen
  IT Recruiter, Senior Consultant
  Farrow Jamieson
  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypulzar

• AGILE Workshop
  Patricia Anthony
  Lincoln University

• Interface Design Workshop
  Stuart Charters
  Signal Director

• Innovation Tour
  Bozdojo
  Ministry of Awesome

• Versioning with Git and Github
  Stuart Charters
  Signal Director

• Product Workshop
  Tasneem Gould
  Product Owner - Xero
  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tasgould

• Design Thinking
  Christian Walsh
  University of Canterbury

Our upcoming guest speakers and workshops can be viewed here.

Without the involvement of our industry partners we couldn't deliver the programme we do, nor give our students the experiences they receive. Whether you are a guest speaker, a project client or internship host, we truly value your support.

If you would like to share your tech experiences with our students, or future students at a recruitment event, please email info@signal.ac.nz or call 0800 990 024.