Created by students in the Otago Business School’s Diploma for Graduates course in ICT, working with friends and family, the website was launched on the second anniversary of Dunlop MacTavish’s death, on June 18, 2019, aged 99 years.
The presentation was one of several made by groups on the course, in which people with a degree in other areas gain fundamental skills in information technology.
The Team Dancer group working on the website for "Dr Shona" comprised Angus Liddell, Jihye Jun, Jonathan Chua, and Kate Hook, whose backgrounds included finance, hotel management, biotechnology, and history.
Sharing information, stories, and a vast collection of documents and photographs of Dunlop-MacTavish’s remarkable life and career were the project clients — her daughter Terry MacTavish and friend and dancer Bronwyn Judge.
The archive had been jointly bequeathed to Terry MacTavish, Bronwyn Judge, and Prof Carol Brown, and had been painstakingly digitised by dancer Heather Hubber.
In their presentation, Team Dancer spoke of their admiration for Dr Shona as they learned about her life and work, and her importance around the world.
"We want to tell everyone who she was and what she has done," team member Jihye Jun said.
The team also spoke of the challenge of compressing 51 gigabytes of material into a functional, logical and visibly pleasing format.
Ms MacTavish said it had been a delight to work with the group, who had told her they had "fallen in love with Dr Shona".
"It has been wonderful to see the website taking shape to highlight not only Shona’s dance, but her extraordinary life," she said.
"When she arrived in Dunedin in the 1950s, she brought a sense of the world beyond very insular New Zealand — she was a breath of fresh air.
"We are very grateful to the project team, who have worked above and beyond their brief and with great sensitivity to make this website a reality."
The website www.shonadunlopmactavish.com is now live and continues to be a work in progress. More information, files, and photographs will be added.
Other technology projects from the course presented on Friday included a website review for Age Concern Otago, and meat cutting technology for Scott Technology Ltd.
