Visa challenges Kiwi students to explore the future

Visa challenges Kiwi students to explore the future of payment technology

First of its kind Visa workshop offers Media Design School and Auckland secondary school students chance to paint future of payments

AUCKLAND, JULY 20, 2015 – Global payments technology company Visa and a select group of creative and digital technology students are exploring the future of payment technology in a first-of-its kind workshop in Auckland on July 21 and 22, 2015.

Being held at Auckland’s Media Design School, the workshop is part of a global Visa programme to provide opportunities to creative and digital technology students to challenge and envision the future of payment devices and methods.

New Zealand’s most awarded creative and digital technology tertiary institution, Media Design School, is the first tertiary provider in the country to be selected to participate in the Visa workshop along with 10 secondary school students from across Auckland. The workshop challenges the 50[1] students to imagine new ways New Zealanders could be paying for products and services in 12 months’ time and in five years’ time and will see them develop prototypes over the two days.

Visa has offered $5000 to the team that comes up with the best concept or insights, $2500 to the runners up and $1000 to the third placed team.

“New Zealanders are among the world’s earliest adopters of new technology,” said Caroline Ada, Visa Country Manager for New Zealand and South Pacific.

“Visa operates in a rapidly changing environment. With over six million Visa payWave transactions occurring in New Zealand each month and mobile payments coming to the market, contactless payments are happening now. We must keep asking what’s next, and it’s important we hear from the next generation of thinkers and creators about what payments could look like in the future,” says Ada.

Programme Leader of the Diploma of Creative Advertising (AdSchool), Kate Humphries says the Media Design School is thrilled to be partnering with one of the world’s most instantly recognisable brands on a ‘live’ working brief.

“As a school, we've always been at the forefront of anticipating the needs of the digital and creative sectors. This workshop provides our students with an opportunity to work with a diverse range of people, not only from Visa, but with other students from across a range of digital disciplines, to create a prototype which could potentially change the future global payments landscape,” says Humphries.

“I’m really excited to see what the next generation of Kiwis come up with over the next two days,” says Ada.

Similar Visa workshops have been conducted with leading media, creative and digital technology institutions in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Singapore and Sydney.

Key themes which have emerged from the workshops include payment methods becoming an extension of self, such as shaking hands to complete a transaction, as well as insights around security, design and technology to evolve payments in the digital world.

ends

© Scoop Media