Conference and Canterbury community funding round recipients announced

Every year InternetNZ gives away money to a bunch of different people and organisations to improve the Internet and our use of it. We do it because our vision is for a better world through a better Internet, and to achieve that vision, we recognise that we are in a position where we can help make others make it a reality.

This year we have already announced the results of community grants funding rounds for conference attendance and community projects and we are pleased to announce new community grants which have just been awarded: a second conference attendance round and a special funding round to help the Internet and its uses in Canterbury.

The Canterbury Community Projects community round money went to a range of projects; these included helping fund community computing centres, putting laptops in low decile schools to creating an ‘Internet of things’ Cycling project.

We know it’s not easy getting Canterbury back on its feet, but we’ve noticed that a lot of projects that sought funding are looking beyond the rebuild and towards the future for the Canterbury region.

CANTERBURY COMMUNITY PROJECTS ROUND

Addington.net Computing Centre ($3,000): Funding will give IT support for Addington.net - a community computing centre established in 2001 as a practical solution to help bridge the digital divide and to bring free/low cost computer access to a community suffering the effects of low income and low skill levels.

Technology Workshops- Fabriko Ltd ($3,500): Will provide a suite of pre-installed laptops for delivering technology workshops to low decile schools and communities.

Computer Science Field Guide and Unplugged website ($20,000): The funding will enable a vastly improved Computer Science Field Guide (and include more emphasis on Internet technologies), to make the Unplugged website more useful for educators (particularly tying it in better with new curricula), and having a subsidised service available for Canterbury schools to introduce these subjects into their mainstream programme.

Greater Christchurch Schools Network ($47,500): Funding will help employ someone with experience to manage the establishing of a low cost leasing option for families over a three year period and also provide financial backing for project.

Code Club Aotearoa ($20,000): Funding will expand Code Club Aotearoa (a network of volunteer-led after school coding clubs for kiwi kids aged 8 -12), particularly to rural areas and lower-decile urban areas.

Internet of Things (IoT) Cycling Data Project- Fabriko Ltd. ($15,000): Post-earthquake, cycling on Christchurch roads has been chaotic and dangerous. This project will initially prototype an Internet of Things device that will gather both passive data (air quality, noise, terrain, location, time etc) and user activated data via way of a good or bad experience button attached to the handle bars of a bike, to gather data on cycling to help offset the low visibility of cyclists.

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As well as the Canterbury Community Projects Round, we have also provided funding for individuals to attend conferences. A number of the applicants will be presenting research or similar at these conferences and so it was very important that they get there. It is a wonderful aspect of working at InternetNZ that we get to help these people make it.

CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE ROUND

Jeffrey Lai ($800): eResearch NZ Conference (Queenstown, NZ): Jeffrey will be presenting as a speaker at the conference around cutting-edge research into Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) implementations of IP-redirection schemes.

Aniket Mahanti, University of Auckland ($3,900): 9th International IEEE Workshop on Network Measurements (Clearwater US): Aniket will be attending and co-chairing this workshop which is co-located with the IEEE Local Computer Networks (LCN) conference.

Huu Trung Truong ($776): eResearch NZ Conference (Queenstown, NZ): Huu will be presenting the outcome of his summer research project on Software Defined Networking (SDN), a trending technology for the Internet.

Tanya Gray, Gather Workshops ($1,200): ULearn 2015 (Auckland NZ): Tanya will be attending the conference to run a 2-3 hour workshop which combines a discussion of Internet-related issues with some basic web programming skills.

Natalie Dudley ($4,800): Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (Texas US): This conference is one of the few opportunities to be in a space dominated by women leaders in technology, and to meet and share ideas on diversity in the tech industry. Natalie will be attending as a participant and is primarily interested in focusing on learning and education for women in technology, and on increasing diversity within technology and teaching people how to be allies.

Adon Moskal ($3,000): Association of Internet Researchers Conference (Arizona, US): Adon submitted a paper on the use of an online course delivery system and will be presenting it at the conference.

Nicole Price ($2,500): 2015 No 2 Bullying Conference (Gold Coast AUS): Nicola submitted an abstract for a presentation role to talk about the research she has done around cyberbullying in schools, as well as attending the conference to learn more around interventions and prevention work internationally.

Mark Frater ($5,050): Broadband World Forum (London UK): Mark will be attending as an attendee to help build industrial awareness and confidence in Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) as a viable technology, The BWF is the world's largest showcase of live NFV Proof of Concepts.

ENDS

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