Queenstown urged to support Gigatown Wanaka bid

Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Vanessa van Uden hit the streets today to lend her support for the Gigatown Wanaka campaign.

She joined the orange-clad volunteers on Marine Parade in Queenstown this morning as they signed up locals and visitors and gain more points for #gigatownwanaka.

“The Council is fully behind Gigatown Wanaka. We take this so seriously that as a Council, we have allowed all our staff to sign up using their QLDC email addresses as well as their person emails and I challenge all the other employers in our district to do the same thing,” Mayor van Uden said.

“It only takes a minute to go to the gigatown website and go through the sign up process. And every time you post on social media or tweet using the #gigatownwanaka hashtag, Wanaka gains valuable points.”

Wanaka romped home as winner in the first stage of the competition, when social media activity was weighted for population. But Chorus has changed the conditions for the last phase of the contest and Wanaka is competing against much larger communities.

Mayor van Uden said that if Wanaka won the competition and became the first community in New Zealand to have 1 gigabyte speed UFB, there would be spin-offs for the whole district.

“And regardless of anything else, it’s the neighbourly thing to do, to lend Wanaka a hand to win this competition. I’d be really stoked if all the thousands of people who signed up to support Queenstown in the first phase of the gigatown competition logged back in and switched their allegiance to Wanaka – it’s that simple.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media