We find ourselves in unprecedented times. All across the globe the impact of COVID-19 is being felt, it’s heart-breaking reading the stories of loss, the impact on societies, businesses and individuals as a result of measures put in place to restrict the momentum of...

Earlier this year in a Christchurch auditorium packed with girls, their mothers, fathers and brothers - I learned just what a big deal Ada Lovelace was from the live performance show ADA ADA ADA. And WOW what a show it was. Employing the power of a programmable LED...

It's the 3rd month of 2019 already! can you believe it? We can't, the year seems to be flying by at pace so it seemed like a good time to update on the things happening here at OptimalBI. Nic, Nick, Steven and Steve With 2 Shane's in the mix already (our founder Shane...

It's been an eventful few weeks news wise with many high profile organisations admitting to their algorithms containing bias, even our government have opened the door a wee crack acknowledging there might be an issue within their programmes. Here is a summary of whats...

Amazon Workspaces have been around for a while now, so I thought I'd give them a go and see what's what. What is this Amazon Workspaces thing then? Amazon Workspaces is Amazon/AWS virtual desktop as a service offering. It allows IT Administrators to provision desktops...

It seems bias in algorithms is a very hot topic at the moment. In a surprisingly honest move Twitter admits their algorithms aren't always impartial: Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey has told US lawmakers the company's algorithms have not always been...

If you collect data or information about anyone, for any purpose, with any intended use - you need a privacy notice or privacy statement. Depending on what you collect, how your customers interact with you and what you do with their information you will likely need...

Happy International Women's day 2018. This year the OptimalBI team are focused on celebrating the fabulous women in STEM - science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; the developers, technicians, electrical engineers, data scientists, economists, scientists,...

If you haven't seen it do take the "Is it Pokemon or Big Data?" Quiz. Not new but always cracks me up and a great party game. Do the quiz now before you read this blog though or you won't find it quite as hilarious.   It's been a while since I first took this...

Robots could threaten up to half of New Zealand's jobs in the next 20 years  - WOW! the media has really bought into the concept we will become redundant and it will be very soon "How long will it take for your job to be automated" and "Is your job about to...

Happy International Womens day everyone. A day when we collectively point a lens on diversity, equality of representation, pay parity, chauvinism, oppression and the many other challenges facing women today in 2017 while creating a path for future generations. So this...

I went to the movie Hidden Figures last week, a lovely story distilling complex issues of a time - primarily racism and chauvinism - on a backdrop of high technology and NASA's quest to beat the Russians into space (and onto the Moon) enabling them to look past their...

Watching #CensusFail unfold over the last couple of weeks was easily as gripping as some of the photo-finish Olympic events in Rio, August 9th arrived with great anticipation yet only a fraction of Australian's could complete their forms online on census day as...

Pokemon Go has moved into its 3rd week of existence since its July 6th release and as crazes go seems to have surpassed any we have seen in recent times. The basic numbers (as I write this on the evening of July 18th) are astounding - google returns 118,000,000...

What is Data Science anyway you might ask? Last week I wrote on how to become a Data Scientist, posting a collection of resources and techniques to get anyone interested started on that career path. It's worth clarifying what the role actually is and what the future...

The Analytics and Data Mining tools space is growing prolifically, new startups keep popping up and raising various masses of cash to build their product out - many disappearing as the result of an early stage sale or running out of said cash too. There are loads of...

We're still loving our Open Data journey, speaking to organisations helping them understand the possibilities is a really rewarding exercise. It does help that Shaun is an Open Data evangelist and makes it easy to bring people on the journey when he is so passionate,...

There aren't enough Open Data Hero's in the world yet and the first step in any Hero creation process is education and common understanding - What is Open Data, What Stops Open Data and What Data should be Open? Whether you already are / want to become an Open Data...