OMGTECH! ANNOUNCES NEW STRUCTURE AND A FRIENDLY FAREWELL TO A CO-FOUNDER
Today the educational charity initiative OMGTech! announces a new structure to allow it to continue to deliver and grow access to technology, with the goal of enabling all NZ kids to have access to future tech like robots, augmented reality and coding to help change their lives.
It also announces that with this change, one of the co-founders, Michelle Dickinson, will be stepping down to focus on her activities to popularise science communication, including her work with Nanogirl Labs.
Michelle has been part of OMGTech! from the beginning, when co-founder Vaughan Rowsell asked if she wanted to help out with a new initiative and she leapt at it with gusto, leading to something really special. Over the last 2 years we have worked with over 3000 kids and announced partnerships with Spark, Microsoft, Huawei and Accenture.
“It has been wonderful to work with Michelle on making this very special charity come to life, her passion and experience in making STEM exciting and accessible has been instrumental in getting OMGTech! to where is is now.” Vaughan Rowsell, Co-founder OMGTech!
OMGTech! will also be established as its own charitable trust. Until now it has been administered in a lean start-up fashion under the Pam Fergusson Charitable Trust, a family run charity founded by Vaughan Rowsell and run by his partner Zoe Timbrell. The charity, in the name of Vaughan’s mother, is to pay forward what she did for him and his two brothers when they were young. Pam Fergusson, a paraplegic solo mother of three, took out a loan on the DPB and bought a computer in the early 80s when others thought she was crazy to go into debt to buy a strange toy. That computer led Vaughan and his brothers on to careers in technology, notably Vaughan founding retail software global leader, Vend.
OMGTech!, after growing even faster than we had hoped, is now taking the next step to become a permanent part of the NZ technology and education fabric, and bringing on a new and wider governance board.
OMGTech! welcomes tech industry veteran Nathan Torkington as the first addition to the governance team. OMGTech! has begun the search for other experienced directors to assist with our focus on education, ethical use of technology, making the connection between business and education as well as representation of Maori & Pacific Island education. Expressions of interest can be sent to board@omgtech.co.nz.