Daniel Bassett
Originally from Auckland, Daniel’s research projects took him to the Antarctic where, based on the Ross Sea ice shelf, he studied fish populations.
Funded by a $300,000 grant from the former Crown entity Foundation for Research in Science and Technology, he spent four years at the Memorial University of Newfoundland looking at mechanisms for invasion by freshwater fish in Canada’s most easterly province.
“It sounds more glamorous than it was,” he says of this work. Exasperated by the vagaries of living from grant to grant and the itinerant career pathway of a research scientist, he decided to return to New Zealand and study information technology.
Heading back to university, he detoured to visit a friend in Hawke’s Bay where he quickly realised that EIT’s computing school offered more of what he was looking for – an emphasis on practical learning followed by the theory to back that up.
“That decided my future,” he says of his swerve in direction. “At 39 I felt if I didn’t forge another path it wasn’t going to happen.”
Daniel enrolled for EIT’s Graduate Diploma in Information Technology, cherry-picking the courses focused on software development. Effectively, it was a programme tailor-made to suit his interests and needs.
“The EIT lecturers were incredibly helpful,” he says. “They bent over backwards to accommodate me and the learning was very hands-on. It was the right place to be at this point in my life. I didn’t know anything about programming and wouldn’t have got the extra advice I needed if I’d been at university.”
Now working for Lowe Corporation as a software developer, Daniel’s job encompasses business intelligence. In analysing data, he draws on skills honed during his time as a research scientist while also using the computing expertise developed during his year of study at EIT.
Enthusiastic about Hawke’s Bay’s weather, wineries and relaxed lifestyle, he had hoped to find employment locally. So he was delighted that the “dynamic” Hastings-based company approached EIT’s School of Computing when it was seeking an up-and-coming graduate to join its staff.
“So many opportunities opened up when I was here,” he says of his move to study in this region. “If I believed in serendipity I would think it was serendipitous. Doorways keep opening up and sometimes I don’t even try.”
With a string of tertiary-level qualifications and experiences that include a year’s postgraduate work at the University of Rhode Island in the USA, Daniel is happily settled in Hawke’s Bay. “It has totally worked out,” he says.