Colin Brown - TracMap

Colin Brown is Managing Director of TracMap NZ, a company which specialises in GPS guidance and data mapping for pastoral agriculture. Colin has an Agricultural Commerce degree from Lincoln University, and prior to forming TracMap in 2005 he worked for Wrightson and was one of the country’s leading agricultural consultants. He also has a farming background, including winning the young Farmer of the Year in 1982.

Since its formation in 2005 TracMap has quickly established itself to be a leading provider of GPS based guidance systems in the rural area, specialising in the pastoral agriculture sector. 80% of the GPS systems installed in fertiliser spreading trucks are now TracMap units, and the company is making increasing numbers of sales to farmers for uses such as fertiliser spreading and shifting irrigation sprinklers. They are also about to release an aviation version, and will have a horticultural system on the market shortly.

David Walker – Gen-i

David is the rural market manager for Gen-i. He has over 30 years experience as a dairy farmer and has spent a career juggling farming and business roles. He is a passionate advocate for the gains that greater broadband connectivity can bring the rural – and by extension New Zealand – economy.

David has been a director of companies in the dairy and electricity industries and has worked with Kiwi Co-op and Fonterra. He set up the highly successful Fencepost.com and this alerted him to the potential benefits of broadband internet to New Zealand’s farming economy.

David will address the impact of ICTs for the farming community, with a special focus on RFID and broadband.

Andrew Cooke – Rezare

Andrew will highlight ways in which farmers are making use of ICT to improve productivity. A small proportion of farmers have been using information technology twenty years or more, but the advent of commodity hardware, broadband, and radio-frequency identification have allowed more farmers to get benefit from “integrated farm management systems”. These farmers gain key information for making decisions, and are able to produce traceable products – while avoiding becoming technology geeks.

In 2004, Andrew and his senior colleagues created Rezare Systems, a software and technology development company focused on the rural sector. Prior to this, Andrew spent 16 years in AgResearch, with focuses on animal recording, and on farmer decision support. He led the development of a number of industry software tools that were at the time ground-breaking in both their intent and usability. More recently Andrew has managed a number of projects in concert with Innovation Waikato and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, examining the contribution of ICT to farm profitability.

View Andrew's Presentation (.pdf - 2.17MB)

Laurence Zwimpfer – UNESCO (NZ) Communications & Information Commissioner:

Laurence is Deputy Chair of the National Commission for UNESCO in New Zealand and has chaired the Communications Sub Commission since 1999. He has represented New Zealand at a number of international forums, including chairing the UNESCO Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Programme from 2006 - 2008.

His background is as a telecommunications engineer originally with the Post Office and then Telecom New Zealand. For the last 11 years he has run a private company specialising in the use of information and communication technologies in education (eLearning), including the rural sector.

He is a Trustee of the 2020 Communications Trust and chairs the Computer Access New Zealand Trust, the organisation responsible for eDay. He also chairs the Wellington Loop, a collaborative learning initiative for Wellington schools and e-Learnz, a consortium of tertiary organisations.