Category Archives: Community

Shaken and Stirred

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Politicians and dignitaries emerged in a sombre mood from the meeting house at Waitangi earlier this month, after a local kaumatua stood up and pronounced that a major city would soon be destroyed by an earthquake. This week New Zealand experienced its worst natural disaster of modern times when Christchurch, our second largest city, was badly damaged by a devastating quake. After a tough year in 2010, this event is likely to have severe repercussions for the entire nation both in economic terms and for morale in general.

It was bad enough that Christchurch took a hit in September, but this event is much worse. Officials are already talking about the possibility of a final death toll in the hundreds and over $6 billion in repairs being needed for the stricken city. Residents must be shocked at how their lives have been turned upside down. For the rest of us, the situation seems surreal and we feel powerless to assist. But this is the scenario we’ve been taught to prepare for all our lives. We just never expected it to happen in the garden city.

Seismic and volcanic upheavals are a fact of life in a country like ours; we sit astride two very active tectonic plates. The forces that built this land can also destroy it. In the short term, the remainder of the nation will need to step up to support our southern cousins. That could mean some form of additional taxation. It will almost certainly mean a dent in our fragile economic recovery. Apart from the pure financial cost, it is hard to focus on productive work when friends and family are suffering and horrifying images of destruction are being broadcast into our homes. If we are to help Christchurch rebuild, we must ensure economic growth continues throughout New Zealand.

* We’ve compiled a list of web-based resources on the iWantMyName NZ blog, for anyone who is worried about missing persons or is keen to help in some way.

Startup Weekend Comes to New Zealand

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Startup Weekend is a life-changing creative workshop for web entrepreneurs that has been held all over the world from Boston to Bangalore. Participants have 54 hours from 6pm on the Friday evening to strategise, build and launch a brand new web business. It’s a pressure cooker event that ensures everyone leaves with new ideas, brilliant personal networks and maybe even a new business. The great news is that the very first New Zealand Startup Weekend will be held in Auckland on 1st-3rd of April.

About a year ago, Startup Weekend global director Marc Nager approached me about bringing the event to New Zealand. But anticipating a very full year at Unlimited Potential plus lots of hard work growing iWantMyName, regrettably I had to decline. So I’m really pleased that Jason Armishaw and his team have stepped forward and I’m chuffed to be invited along as an advisor to the initiative. I’m looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting stuck in with some brain-storming on the day. It’s an opportunity for me to share some of the lessons learned within a high growth web start-up business and no doubt to learn heaps myself from a bunch of much smarter people.

With the event only a few weeks away, we need to muster resources and get folks signed up pronto! Developers, designers, business strategists, marketers, investors. Get your dream team together or just rock up by yourself and be ready to contribute your particular skills. If you know of any companies that can help out with some resources please contact Jason as soon as possible. There will be media involvement, so it’s a great opportunity to share what you do. See you there.

What’s Wong?

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Pansy Wong was New Zealand’s first member of parliament of Asian descent and our first Asian Cabinet Minister. By all accounts she has been an effective and hard-working representative. Her early departure from the halls of government is an unnecessary loss and points to why there is such a dearth of talent amongst our legislators.

Whilst Pansy Wong was deciding her future over the weekend, Labour Party President Andrew Little was denouncing Labour MP George Hawkins as a “lightweight” after the retiring MP scuttled a bid to install a pro-union candidate in his safe Manurewa seat. Little is quite right however, Hawkins has contributed very little to the business of government of late. But perhaps Little should have kept this view to himself. No matter. What Hawkins lacked in intellectual capacity he made up for in much needed Labour votes, which is why he was kept on well past his use by date.

Wong resigned over the media clamour about her husband doing some business on a tax-payer subsidised trip abroad. Now she wants to retire so she and her husband can get on with their entrepreneurial endeavours out of the public eye. Who can blame her? But shouldn’t we be encouraging our MPs and Ministers to go out and represent the country? If they pull in some more business for New Zealand, how is this a bad thing? 

With the departure of Wong, Parliament will become less diverse and an even more unwelcoming place for high calibre individuals. Meanwhile, plonkers like George Hawkins will sit quietly on their bottoms waiting to collect fat retirement pensions. Somehow this doesn’t seem right.

StartupDigest Offers Event Buffet

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It has been a busy year, but I always manage to keep some time free for an important project close to my heart. It involves curating content for the New Zealand StartupDigest. The weekly publication provides a quick reference summary of all the best start-up, technology and innovation events across New Zealand.

StartupDigest was co-founded by Chris McCann who describes himself as an “entrepreneurial activist”. Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Chris has managed to motivate around 50 writers, entrepreneurs and fellow activists from around the globe to contribute all of the event content that goes into the various digests each week. It’s a much needed (free) service that helps everybody to connect within the tech start-up ecosystem.

You can subscribe to StartupDigest by selecting a country, city or university community that interests you. It is also possible to subscribe to specific verticals such as green tech or mobile, for example. This week’s NZ StartupDigest is available here. If you have any start-up, technology or innovation related events coming up in 2011 we’d love to hear about it. There is no cost for listing an event and it’s a great way to connect with hundreds of people interested in the tech start-up scene.

W2W – Innovators Ready to Roll

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Global Entrepreneurship Week has rolled around already and Unlimited Potential is once again doing it’s bit to promote technology entrepreneurship as a career option. I’ll be working hard this week on a few last minute details for our Wellington to the World (W2W) event on Thursday.

Wellington is alive with tech talent at present and there has been somewhat of a renaissance as geek-preneurs have got cracking launching some great products onto the world stage. In some cases these are second or third generation ventures where there has been an earlier exit. W2W is a showcase event that brings together technology innovators, entrepreneurs and investors to share ideas and celebrate emerging tech ventures from around the region. 

We have a cool new venue this year, so have included a small demo zone adjacent to the bar area in the programme. There will be plenty of opportunity for hands on experience. Some of the companies in the demo zone will also be presenting during the entrepreneur flash talks. The event begins at 4pm on Thursday 18th November with talks by technology researchers from Victoria University. A number of these projects have commercial potential and will be seeking partnerships and investment in the future. Victoria University commercialisation arm Viclink is an event partner, so please support these speakers. 

The event also encapsulates the Summer of Tech launch for 2010/11. Summer of Tech is a great initiative that matches software and engineering companies with students looking for work experience over the summer holidays. It’s an important plank in a strategy to build up capacity and grow employment in hi-tech around the region. This year we are very pleased to have Xero CTO Craig Walker to speak at the launch. There are a small number of places left at the event, so be quick, registration is essential.

Does Shakedown Have Silver Lining?

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Christchurch based politician Jim Anderton will no doubt be regretting his comment last week that it would take a “seismic shift” for incumbent Christchurch mayor Bob Parker not to lose the local body election fight that they are both engaged in. At 4.35am last Saturday morning, New Zealand’s second largest city was struck by an earthquake of similar strength to that which destroyed Haiti. In fact Parker, ever the gentleman showman, has risen to the occasion and must be privately elated that he has a new public platform on which to perform. The timing is also perfect for other politicians who are ever mindful of the lessons from 9/11 and New Orleans.

When old Mr Hubbard went to the cupboard and found it bare recently, the subsequent receivership of poorly managed South Canterbury Finance (SCF) and its labyrinthine and multitudinous related entities also hit the Canterbury region like a shock wave. It was a painful reminder of why we cannot continue to prime our economic machine purely on the basis of milk exports and highly leveraged property assets. Investors in the failed firm received an immediate payment under a government guarantee scheme totalling $1.7 billion. Whilst some of this cash will no doubt be recovered, it’s appalling that SCF went unchecked for so long. Ordinary taxpayers and legitimate businesses have had to shoulder this burden.

Most of the SCF payout will likely disappear into holiday trips to Surfer’s Paradise and safe but low interest earning bank accounts of the grey brigade.Very little will actually be reinvested into the productive part of the New Zealand economy. Consequently, the earthquake is a “god-send” for central government too. Apart from the immediate distraction from existing economic problems, it will validate investing hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure repairs. Road builders, plasterers and brick layers from all over the country will be fully engaged for months, possibly years. That may be quite a good thing.

I don’t wish to minimise the effects on Christchurch residents as they were thrown from their beds on Saturday morning. It must have been a terrifying ordeal and the ongoing psychological trauma of aftershocks will continue to play on minds. But I partially agree with some commentators who suggest that New Zealand has a high level of preparedness and that we will come through this. Now that the dust has settled, we might even see some benefits arise from this event. If nothing else, there will be a lot of learnings that can be passed on to those of us that live in other parts of the country with a history of high seismicity.

The Hills Are Alive

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The hills of Wellington may not be alive with the sound of music as such, but they are home to some of New Zealand’s coolest emerging technology sector companies.

Providing a network forum for entrepreneurs to connect with investors, future employees and other innovators is part of what we do at Unlimited Potential. This week IN-Business magazine published its fantabulous SmartNZ technology supplement and were kind enough to include an article penned by yours truly. In the article I talk about the resurgence of tech entrepreneurship and how we can enjoy New Zealand’s lifestyle whilst scaling our businesses globally.

The publication leans heavily on the people and events happening in the technology scene around the Greater Wellington region and is a beacon of light for those of us working within smaller tech companies. Being an entrepreneur has its ups and downs and we all need a little dose of inspiration at times. Tim Collins and the team at IN-Business have done an outstanding job with SmartNZ and I would highly recommend grabbing a hard copy or checking out the digital version of the magazine.

The article I wrote for SmartNZ also mentions Startup Digest, a weekly listing of startup, innovation and technology events. If you would like to subscribe to the New Zealand digest or find out how to get your tech event or product launch listed, you can find this week’s edition here.

Funding Allocation Begs Questions

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The Pacific Island community was reeling last month after the shock suspension of popular community radio personality Efeso Collins. The gagging came shortly after Collins expressed reservations over an uncontested government funding deal worth almost $5 million offered to a previously unknown economic development trust entity called Pacific EDA. Now the government is scrambling to distance itself from the whole mess, but the story just won’t die.

Collins made an empassioned statement during his regular spot on Radio 531pi recently, calling for more transparency but was then dumped by the station management. The text of his comments has been made available on the Pacific Eyewitness blog. Pacific EDA received a direct Ministerial allocation of funding in the 2010 Budget, contrary to advice given by officials at the Ministry for Pacific Island Affairs. Radio 531pi parent company National Pacific Radio Trust receives government funding and is chaired by Tino Pereira. The CEO of the Pacific EDA is one Anthony J M (JR) Pereira. Coincidence? No, the men are brothers and were both directors of Pacific EDA when the company first formed.

The affair reeks of political patronage and has been aggravated further by the fact that a journalist appears to have been prevented from doing his job because of vested interests. These efforts will come to nought however because Collins’ friends have ensured the case has been widely aired in the New Zealand Herald and in other media forums online. Collins rightly asks why an organisation with three employees should receive such a vast sum to essentially perform programmes that already exist within other organisations.

So, will this funding create more jobs and improved outcomes for Pacific Islanders? Will there be a demonstrable return to New Zealand in general? Those are very good questions. Questions that will no doubt be further explored by the media and the government in the weeks ahead.

Bright Tech to Lead Recovery

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The collapse of financial institutions during the recession led to the destruction of billions of dollars of wealth and made us question the sanity behind investing exclusively in property or risky finance companies. But a renaissance in angel investing and a surge of interest by economic development organisations in the tech sector is opening up new opportunities.

Grow Wellington is the regional economic development body that offers business programmes for enterprises across Kapiti Coast, Wairarapa, Hutt Valley and Wellington city. Recently Grow Wellington launched the Bright Ideas Challenge in an effort to identify and motivate the region’s closet entrepreneurs and help get good ideas supported and funded. The challenge invites aspiring entrepreneurs to submit a 100 word description of their business idea in return for advice and coaching. The top 200 ideas will be eligible for KickStart, a business startup programme. There is $25,000 in seed funding on offer plus the chance to meet investors and inspirational leaders in business.

With high value technology ventures and small businesses driving the economic recovery globally, at Unlimited Potential we thought it a good idea to get behind the Bright Ideas Challenge and to encourage our entrepreneurial members from the ICT sector to put their best foot forward. So when you go to the Bright Ideas submission page, make sure you click on Unlimited Potential in the dropdown box. UP will use its industry networks and events to support nominated ICT projects that graduate from the challenge.

Paul Spence is currently Unlimited Potential co-chair, CEO at tech startup iWantMyName and the New Zealand moderator for Silicon Valley based StartupDigest. You can contact him on Twitter @GeniusNet.

Two Dimensional Culture Devalues Society

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A couple of issues currently being debated in the New Zealand media suggest why as a nation we struggle to think outside the box. It also illustrates how we are failing miserably to deal with a selfish and deeply ingrained culture of alcohol misuse that continues to plague our society.

Proponents of street racing in Christchurch have suggested that the best way to keep intoxicated young drivers off the street is by providing a burn-out pad adjacent to a residential suburb away from the city centre. The disadvantages of this idea will be immediately apparent to local residents who will be required to endure hours of engine revving, tyre squealing and the stomach churning stench of burnt rubber associated with this mindless “sport”. Construction of a burn-out pad therefore simply legitimises what is already a highly anti-social form of behaviour.

At the other end of the country there is much public hand-wringing and a media feeding frenzy over the lack of progress to develop the Auckland waterfront into “party central” in time for the predicted influx of visitors to the Rugby World Cup (RWC). But nobody has yet questioned whether there exists a real need. A quick survey of Princes Wharf and surrounds reveals dozens of existing bars and restaurants, many of which seem to be struggling to attract any custom at all outside of the traditional boozy weekend nights. Surely the basis for “Party Central” already exists. On the other hand, given the rugby playing community’s poor track record in treating alcohol responsibly, perhaps the Police would prefer all of the RWC drinkers to be corralled into a large centralised holding pen, as is being suggested.

The most disturbing aspect of these two debates is that the focus seems to be on providing a solution that caters for and indeed promotes boorish behaviour as a cultural norm rather than addressing the prevailing values in wider society. In a nation that seems overly self-obsessed with a two dimensional culture of sport and binge drinking, will we ever truly be able to nourish and grow an environment of creativity and innovation?