As New Zealand courts tech talent, isolation becomes a draw

In the South Pacific, software no longer needs a hard sell

New Zealand has long wanted to be a tech hub, but distance was an issue. Now, at a moment of political upheaval around the globe, that isolation has become a selling point. A municipal programme to fly in 100 developers next month — wine them, dine them and offer them jobs — was expected to draw 2,500 applications. But the recruitment effort, called LookSee Wellington, was besieged with over 48,000 entries, including workers at Google, Amazon, Facebook, MIT and NASA. At one point so many people checked out the program that the website failed.

For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand