The Story of New Zealand's Internet

Transcription

Don Stokes – Volcano Cam Network Architect, Knossos Networks Limited

“You’ve got to remember that we’re all geeks. There’s this volcano blowing its top in the middle of the North Island. The first thing that happened is that I asked around the Geology department if anybody was going to go out there and realised that they’d all bugged out hours ago. There were probably quite a few people trying to do something at that point. In fact, I got as far as enquiring as to what it would cost to hire a plane to go and have a look. Richard Naylor and a couple of others also had a similar idea and thought, “What about if we actually go and put a camera up there?”. I said, “This sounds like a good idea but since it is a good idea, why doesn’t Netlink? (0:53) sponsor it? That gets me in the car up there!”. It seemed like a cool thing to do and, of course, once we got it up there we could look at this thing in real time and see what was happening without actually physically having to be there. So yes it was a ‘let’s get it out there and see what we can do’, partly it was a cool thing to do and partly it was in a field I was interested in anyway.”