Sir Paul Callaghan on prosperity in New Zealand

I went along to a public lecture by Professor Sir Paul Callaghan on Wednesday evening. He's a scientist who focusses on nanotechnology and magentic resonance. He was voted New Zealander of the year this year.


The lecture was organised by the main Wellington university and the City Council, as part of a programme of 'during the World Cup, but not rugby' events. The audience turnout was really impressive, with around 1,200 people showing up.


The subject of his talk was how New Zealand could become more prosperous. His arguments for why this needs to happen included a personal account of his battle with cancer - he has paid for treatments himself where they aren't funded by the healthcare system here.


He made the case that greater propserity shouldn't (and can't) be achieved through exploiting natural resources or by expanding tourism and the wine industry. Instead, he advocates a focus on high-tech export businesses that aim for small niches in the global market. These would need to be developed by scientific entrepreneurs, so policies should look at how to support researchers and reduce the brain-drain overseas.


I thought the proposed silver bullet was a bit too simple. I did really enjoy his speaking style and the energy he put into making his case. I haven't been able to find footage from the lecture, but
Update - here's a link to the lecture http://vimeo.com/29126569

he gave a shorter version of the address to a public service leadership course that my colleague went to a few months back. Here's the video of that -

Times Ed on London Challenge

I saw this article in the TES to mark the end of London Challenge last month. Given the usual TES attitude to any central Govt initiative, the positive tone was really pleasing and represents pretty high praise. This came on top of the Ofsted thematic report that came out in December and another year of big improvements in Key Stage 2 and GCSE results.


Cheesy as it is to say, I'm really proud of having been part of the programme. The levels of commitment and common purpose at all levels, from the classroom to the Department were inspiring and put quite simply, it worked. Personally I got a huge amount of satisfaction and learning from being responsible for a part of it. However hard it felt at times, the impact and the experience made it all worth while.