It’s been a busy start to the year – not only did we migrate the old platform to our new technology, we’ve also been setting up a new home for the National Forward Works Viewer.
We’re very excited to announce the establishment of the Digital Built Aotearoa Foundation (DBAF) – a charitable organisation which has been formed to provide a permanent home for the NFWV, as well as to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing from lessons learned during recovery projects within the infrastructure sector.
Why a foundation?
As a country we have amassed vast amounts of knowledge from our experiences in disaster recovery projects such as SCIRT and NCTIR. We’ve built tools, collected data and developed processes, but often when the recovery phase is over, the tools are switched off, life goes on and knowledge is stored away and not necessarily shared.
The NFWV is one such tool which bucked the trend – built to help co-ordinate the rebuild of Christchurch, it was identified as having merit as a BAU coordination tool and so was kept alive through the good work of LINZ and then later Christchurch City Council, who have been temporary custodians of the technology since 2018.
We looked at different options for a permanent home for the National Forward Works Viewer, and in discussion with our stakeholders and Christchurch City Council, we identified that a charitable foundation would be the best place for the NFWV to endure. The criteria for the choice of organisation included:
The organisation needed to be able to act flexibly with a service-orientated postureThe organisation needs to prioritise the overarching goal of the Forward Works Viewer as a trusted tool for collaboration and coordinationThe organisation needed to be both neutral and trusted for organisations to confidently share their dataThe organisation needed to be able to act independently (of a sector or region)
A foundation offers all of this and more.
With the DBAF now in place, the NFWV will have greater access to funding sources, and because it’s held by a neutral and trustworthy entity, it ensures that project and asset data are safeguarded. It also eliminates any potential sector or geographic bias, and secures the longevity, investment, and growth of the NFWV.
Ultimately, this move will enable the NFWV to play an enduring role in Aotearoa’s infrastructure development.
We would like to thank Christchurch City Council for their steadfast support of the NFWV over the last five years, and they will remain members of our National Advisory Group along with Waka Kotahi, Te Waihanga InfraCom, and our other council subscribers.
To find out more about the Digital Built Aotearoa Foundation, head to www.digitalbuiltaotearoa.org.nz
“I want us to stop reinventing the wheel every time there’s a new disaster or large infrastructure programme, and instead start looking at opportunities to standardise the way we work across the sector, and promote open-data for the benefit of the communities we serve”
Matt Thomas, Trustee & Chair of the DBAF
