Quick catch up on last few weeks...(cont'd)

I met Wayne Stewart of Business Mechanix when I was doing my internship at YouthLaw. I remembered that Wayne had once mentioned that Business Mechanix does some work for Wintec in Hamilton. yMedia was still looking for 3 industry members for this year's yMedia Challenge. I gave Wayne a call and we set up a meeting, see if he was interested in what we were doing.

I arrived at the office on Beaumont Street with my backpack and suitcase, I was travelling to Wellington in the afternoon. Wayne told me about his travels to the states for a Microsoft conference on the tertiary sector, Business Mechanix was the only New Zealand company invited to the conference, he explained that Business Mechanix does a significant amount of work for the tertiary sector in New Zealand. What a perfect fit for yMedia.

Pamela arrived and Wayne invited Lyndal Stewart (Business Development Director of Business Mechanix) in as well. We talked about the yMedia Challenge and what we are doing this year. Lyndal has recently started a chartiable trust called "Technology Reaching Youth Foundation" which aims to provide reliable and sustainable access to technology for youth across New Zealand. She mentioned that she was looking for some research around what existing schemes have achieved and areas where more development is needed. I instantly thought of the Head of Communication Studies at Unitec New Zealand, Jocelyn Williams. She has been finishing off her thesis about building community through free Internet access in New Zealand. After the meeting, I introduced Lyndal and Jocelyn by email. Both were receptive to the introduction, hopefully they will both find it valuable!

The story so far...

Hi, I'm Nathan. I've decided to take over this blog because it hasn't been updated in a while!

Last year, I became involved in the yMedia challenge and had the opportunity to work with YouthLaw and come up with a digital media project to help make legal information more accessible to young people. My best friend, Red, and I worked with YouthLaw to design a bebo page with quizzes and videos that helped people better understand the law.

Well, we won it, and that spun off a whole lot of cool opportunties for us. Money for starters, like $1,000 for winning the challenge. An internship at Saatchi & Saatchi and an invitation to speak at the Digital Future Summit.

Then, I spent all of the semester working for YouthLaw on a film project that will be made available to youth workers and advocates around the country over the Internet. (http://youthlawdm.blogspot.com) And I could use it as to credit to my Communications degree at Unitec! Mean!

Now, I've become involved in yMedia again, helping to organise the 2008 challenge. I've come onboard as the "relationship manager" which basically means I go around and talk to lots of people.

My current todo list is:

* Drink coffee
* Talk to people in digital and media industries
* Find prizes and judges
* Find $10,000
* Write blog

Well I guess I'm doing ok on the last one. I'll do a bit of a recap of the last couple of weeks in my next post! Seeyou!

P.S. Please leave a comment so it looks like people are actually read this :) Sponsors love that kind of stuff!