Douglas Harré
Douglas is the Senior ICT Consultant at CORE Education.
Douglas has worked closely with teachers, management and governance entities in schools, and a wide range of staff across the Ministry of Education. He maintains a wide network of contacts across other government departments that have a digital literacy or cybersafety focus. He also has strong connections with many of the major (and minor!) ICT vendors of all descriptions throughout the country.
He joined the CORE team in 2011 to apply his expertise and leadership to many projects—starting (in his first week of work) with his immersion into assisting Canterbury schools recover, relocate, and reconnect after the Christchurch earthquakes.
Douglas taught geography and outdoor education at Hagley Community College in Christchurch from 1985 until 2000. During this period he also taught A-Level Geography at schools in the UK. Douglas spent five years as a teacher-librarian at a time when schools were first getting connected to the internet in the late 1990s. He then spent two years as an ICT advisor to schools throughout New Zealand. He also took on a World Bank contract in Egypt in early 2001, looking at investment opportunities for ICT in education in that country.
From late 2001 until early 2009 Douglas was the senior ICT Consultant at the Ministry of Education National Office in Wellington. He was closely involved with the setting up and rolling out of all of the major ICT initiatives to schools. These include: the setting up of a national ICT Helpdesk for schools, the rolling out of the initial broadband programme to schools, negotiation of a range national software agreements across the school sector—these include the Microsoft Schools Agreement, a national Apple software agreement (a world first), plus various antivirus and services deals that benefitted schools greatly.
On the hardware front, Douglas was closely involved in the selection and rollout of 42,000 laptops to New Zealand teachers, and more recently, the upgrading of New Zealand schools' networks in preparation for the coming ultrafast broadband to schools rollout.
On a wider cross-government approach, he has worked with a range of public sector agencies on various cyber-strategies (broadband, cyber security, digital literacy), and has represented the New Zealand Ministry of Education at a range of national and international e-learning events.
Douglas’ work across the education sector, government departments, and the private sector has given him deep insight into what makes ICT and elearning initiative successful at a government, school, and classroom level.
In such a rapidly changing environment, it is crucial that funding is used well to provide the greatest benefit to schools, teachers, and students. His wide range of skills and experience at the local, national, and international level can assist individual schools and larger education organisations to deliver great value and education outcomes.
- Computerworld Awards (New Zealand’s national IT awards event), Judge in Education, Project Implementation and Infrastructure categories
- E-Day - New Zealand’s main event for the collection and disposal of e-waste, National Trustee
- Wellington 2020 Trust, Associate Trustee
- E-Learning Porirua, Associate Trustee
- “A National Education Network for New Zealand?” QUESTnet Conference, Queensland, Australia, July 2010
- “The Virtual Learning Network in New Zealand” Consortium for School Networking Conference, Washington DC, USA, March 2008
- “Implementing a National Cybersafety Programme Across the Compulsory School Sector” Global Knowledge Partnership Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, December 2007
- “TELA- The Benefits of a National Teacher Laptop Programme” The 1st Smart School Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, March 2007
- “The ICT Professional Development Programme in NZ”, 2nd British Regional ICT Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, March 2006
- “Cybersafety in New Zealand Schools” Global Cyber-rights and Responsibilities Conference, Oxford University, UK, September 2005
- Numerous presentations at ICT conferences throughout New Zealand on a wide range of topics over the past 8 years
- Awarded British Council ICT Study Fellowship to UK 2007
"I came to New Zealand as a five year old, leaving behind the promise of a swinging-sixties lifestyle in rural Essex for the heady excitement of suburban Auckland. I spent my childhood holidays being driven (slowly) to see my relations in Bluff, which resulted in a lifelong interest in geography.
Since then, I have lived in various places carrying out a myriad of jobs...bicycle mechanic in downtown London, aid-worker in the Solomon Islands, tree-planter in northern Canada and, somewhat predictably, geography and outdoor education teacher in Christchurch.
I now spend most of my time in the Wellington Airport Departure Lounge, reading the Guardian Online, gently caressing my new Zero Halliburton laptop case, and planning a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway."
