April newsletter: Words from new ED

This is my first newsletter as the new Executive Director for DINZ and the very first thing I’d like to do is thank Andrew Weaver, our outgoing ED, for his tremendous leadership throughout our establishment phase and to wish him all the very, very best on the next stage of his journey. Andrew has worked tirelessly over the last two and a half years to ensure we are working towards a world where people can safely express their identity to fully participate in the digital economy and society overall. 
 
Good luck Andrew and all the best. E te rangatira, tēnā rawa atu koe. Kia pai te haere
 
I’d also like to reflect a little on why I feel so privileged to have been offered the opportunity to take up this role.
 
Clearly, we are living in an age of unprecedented advances across a broad range of technologies, not just in digital but in biotech, in engineering, in pharmaceuticals, in energy, in advanced materials, in 3-D printing, in nanotech, in robotics; the list is a very long one!
 
If you are familiar with work from the likes of Peter Diamandis (co-founder of Singularity University and X-Prize), Jeremy Rifkin (of the zero marginal cost society fame) and Salim Ismail (author of Exponential Organisations) you will be aware that they evangelise a coming age of abundance, driven by the mass adoption of these advancing technologies.
 
However, anyone who’s read or listened to Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee around what they call The Great Decoupling, will be aware that access to this abundance has not been equitable to date, and that the technology-driven rise in labour productivity seen in the last few years has not been matched by an equivalent rise in prosperity for the majority of people.
 
To me it is very clear that equitable access to technology is the key driver in ensuring that the benefits of a tech-driven age of abundance can be provided to all people, not just the lucky few. It is also very clear to me that digital identity is at the very heart of ensuring that equitable access.

Ngā Mihi,

Michael Murphy
Executive Director
Digital Identity New Zealand

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