The ENGAGE and ENRICH early childhood programmes are now rolling out nationally.
Ignite Consultants made up of Otago University Students are helping non-profits with business needs, the Toiora High Street co-housing project, even the Mission’s own parenting through separation course delivered online.
These are smarter ways of doing things that open up access and impact in ways that seem obvious in hindsight.
There are opportunities coming too: although I’m not a huge fan of AI, anyone can see that machine learning can help in medical diagnoses, potentially in resource consent processes, better weather forecasts and (probably) traffic management.
Dunedin is very well placed to be the source of exactly those kinds of innovation.
Which is not only good to know, but likely essential to how well we will do as a community over the next few years.
As a company town we’re going to be a bit up against it if the government’s finances don’t improve. And at the moment, that’s not looking flash.
The government has a "structural deficit", which means no matter how good the tax take is — when the economy is running better than it is now — the outgoings are higher.
The government has nearly $240 billion of debt, double the proportion of our GDP than right after the Christchurch Earthquakes.
Outgoings are only increasing with how we’re ageing and the decades of deferred maintenance on, well, everything — schools and hospitals are only the start of it — are coming due.
In the United Kingdom, the government has had to raise taxes and slash spending and is now looking at whether taxes will have to go up again.
The next few years are going to be a great time to show how good we are at innovation.
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