Queenstown Resort College (QRC) has taken on a manager to triple its tech learning offering.

The hospitality management/adventure tourism tertiary institute last November introduced its first tech course, in machine learning fundamentals, with the aim of diversifying Queenstown’s tourism-dependent economy.

Now, with the appointment of Australian-raised programme development manager, Ally Kettle (pictured), who has a background in both education and technology, QRC’s about to roll out courses covering the likes of artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and cloud security.

‘‘I’m just writing the micro-credentials,’’ she says.

Kettle adds the aim with AI is to leverage it for tourism growth.

‘‘It’s using technology, but in a pointed direction.

‘‘We’ve got all of this tourism and hospitality and now we’ve got all of this technology, how do we link the two?

‘‘It’s essentially just building that bridge.’’

Most recently she spent 10 months in South Korea, opening three schools, alongside Samsung and Hyundai, using the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) educational approach.

Her secondary role at QRC is recruiting students across the board.

To that end she’s about to head off to career expos, and the like, in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hawke’s Bay and Rotorua.

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