ISSUE
Friday, August 22, 2025
Volume 16 . Issue 73
Kiwi tertiary institutions will need a radical shift in thinking when it comes to training the next generation of software engineers and developers if they are to keep up with the rapidly changing trends of the global market, says an Auckland IT expert.
Manas Kumar, CEO of NZ’s leading technology firm, Optimizer HQ, says that the Cloud Readiness Index 2012 shows that NZ is falling seriously behind in the Asia Pacific region when it comes to readiness for widespread adoption of cloud computing services.
“The Cloud Readiness index has been designed to track the development of infrastructure in the country which allows for cloud computing across leading Asia Pacific economies. At the moment, New Zealand doesn’t even feature in the top five countries. We are sixth, behind Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. I’d say we should be aiming for at least top three, because cloud computing is where Kiwis, with our unique sense of creativity and no. 8 wire attitude, can really compete with the rest of the world.”
Kumar says that the technological changes coming up in the market in the next decade will move at a faster pace than over the last 100 years. He also adds that the tricky thing about resolving scalability has been finding the right graduates to fill engineering and development roles at the company – and this is where tertiary institutions need to start listening to the needs of the industry.
“At the academic level in NZ, I think there is still a lot of emphasis on theory. It’s important to know theory, of course, nobody is saying that’s not a good thing, but they need to have at least a basic understanding of the commercial world as well.
I’m only speaking in a very general sense, and I know some institutions are already slowly starting to do this, but they need to invite real-life businesses to come in and share their thoughts, give these kids an idea of what the challenges are in the real world,” he says.
Kiwi tertiary institutions will need a radical shift in thinking when it comes to training the next generation of software engineers and developers if they are to keep up with the rapidly changing trends of the global market, says an Auckland IT expert. Manas Kumar, CEO of NZ’s leading technology...
Kiwi tertiary institutions will need a radical shift in thinking when it comes to training the next generation of software engineers and developers if they are to keep up with the rapidly changing trends of the global market, says an Auckland IT expert.
Manas Kumar, CEO of NZ’s leading technology firm, Optimizer HQ, says that the Cloud Readiness Index 2012 shows that NZ is falling seriously behind in the Asia Pacific region when it comes to readiness for widespread adoption of cloud computing services.
“The Cloud Readiness index has been designed to track the development of infrastructure in the country which allows for cloud computing across leading Asia Pacific economies. At the moment, New Zealand doesn’t even feature in the top five countries. We are sixth, behind Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. I’d say we should be aiming for at least top three, because cloud computing is where Kiwis, with our unique sense of creativity and no. 8 wire attitude, can really compete with the rest of the world.”
Kumar says that the technological changes coming up in the market in the next decade will move at a faster pace than over the last 100 years. He also adds that the tricky thing about resolving scalability has been finding the right graduates to fill engineering and development roles at the company – and this is where tertiary institutions need to start listening to the needs of the industry.
“At the academic level in NZ, I think there is still a lot of emphasis on theory. It’s important to know theory, of course, nobody is saying that’s not a good thing, but they need to have at least a basic understanding of the commercial world as well.
I’m only speaking in a very general sense, and I know some institutions are already slowly starting to do this, but they need to invite real-life businesses to come in and share their thoughts, give these kids an idea of what the challenges are in the real world,” he says.
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