Media release
Wednesday 7 December 2016
SmartStart – engineered by Catalyst
We’re delighted to have helped with SmartStart – a brand new one stop shop for expectant and new parents.
The project is led by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry
of Social Development, and Inland Revenue, with support from Plunket and the New Zealand College of Midwives.
SmartStart helps users through pregnancy, birth and baby’s first months of life, with information on things like how to
find a midwife, how to register the new baby and eligibility for childcare subsidies. No trawling different websites, no
endless searching the web, no wondering if information is accurate and up to date.
DIA’s Registrar-General and General Manager of Births, Deaths, Marriages, Citizenship and Translations, Jeff Montgomery,
says SmartStart is a game-changer for new and expectant parents. “Now it’s so easy to work out what you need to do and
when you need to do it. Having all these services available on one easy-to-use site, accessible on any device, will be a
huge help for parents.”
“We can’t wait for New Zealanders to use and recommend SmartStart,” Mr Montgomery says.
Catalyst Director Don Christie says, “We’re incredibly proud of SmartStart.
“We worked closely with DIA to design and build exactly what they wanted.
Using open source technologies Django and ReactJS, our developers made sure the site functions well and is securely
hosted in the AWS Cloud. Our design and UX team also worked with DIA to make sure the look and feel of the site was
appealing, intuitive and easy to use,” Mr Christie said.
Check out SmartStart at https://smartstart.services.govt.nz/
For more information about Catalyst’s services, please visit
ENDS