Partnerships – Digital Equity

Te Rourou partners with One New Zealand in a number of different ways. The skills, resources and knowledge that sit within the business strengthen and enhance our work, and allow us to provide unique offerings to our community partners.

Past examples of our partnership in action have included the Change Accelerator, a 6 week intensive programme taking community technology ideas from concept to completion, including building MVPs; and the Hackathons, a week long facilitated process where teams of skilled volunteers from across the business swarm to solve community partner problems. We also provide staff with opportunities to volunteer, and contribute to causes they care about through our donation matching programme, Double Your Dollar. In 2021, this matching programme  has seen more than $400,000 donated to charities.

Toitū te Toki | Our Device Equity Programme

Digital equity is a focus for us with thousands of young people still experiencing digital exclusion. Digital exclusion goes beyond just an internet connection – it’s the opportunity to access the tools, knowledge and digital understanding that enable young people to participate fully in the world.

Having access to the digital world is essential today for almost everything from online banking to interacting with the government to keeping connected with friends and whānau. Not being digital connected is a huge barrier. This is especially true for our young people in education, and the event of Covid 19 has compounded this. Too many of our young people do not have access to the tools they need to engage in education successfully. Network4Learning’s recent Aka Kōrero / Touchpoint report demonstrates the need is very real. This report shares the findings of N4L’s June 2021 survey of 550 schools. Half of low-decile schools surveyed said the majority of their students had no device at home, while a quarter said more than half had no internet access.

Our pilot programme is up and running in Invercargill. We’re now entering into our second year of operation (2023), partnering with local schools in Invercargill.

What we need

In 2023, we’re looking at ways we can scale this programme and we’re looking for partners to support the roll out to more schools.

If possible we are looking for laptops that fit the below minimum specs:

  • Windows 10 Pro Operating System (preinstalled)
  • 8GB RAM
  • 256GB SSD
  • Physical NIC (network socket)

We appreciate any support from organisations that are able to donate laptops to support rangatahi in their education journey.