Category Archives: Innovation

Animation Digerati Illuminate Capital

Posted on by
Reply

As an already highly respected world centre for games, animation and visual effects, it is only fitting that our capital city plays host to AnimFX ’09, an event that has emerged as an increasingly noteworthy gathering amongst the global digital animation and movie effects community. 

The main conference programme kicks off on Friday November 6th and includes talks by none other than Weta Workshop founder Richard Taylor. His colleague Matt Aitken, who was visual effects supervisor for District 9, will also be speaking. If that weren’t enough, the impressive international line-up includes Sander Schwartz, formerly president of Warner Brothers Animation, and Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences stalwart Jeff Okun who masterminded the terrifying “nano-bots” in the most recent rendition of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Having such luminaries under one roof represents a huge opportunity for the New Zealand industry to form valuable network linkages into what is arguably the entertainment production capital of the world. Now in its fourth year, success stories from previous AnimFX event remind us how important it is for local technology firms to reach out globally and incidentally how we can leverage our natural attributes to lure highly acclaimed individuals to our shores.

W2W’09 is another event that aims to build capability and connect technology entrepreneurs globally. Focussing on web-based and ICT enabled ventures, W2W runs on the afternoon of 17th November. More about this next week…

ION e-Letter August/September 2009

Posted on by
2

GeniusNet is proud to host the ION e-Letter. ION is New Zealand’s original virtual community for innovators, entrepreneurs, mentors and investors. ION is kindly supported by EGL and Revera.

 EGLRevera

W2W W0W

The magic that is Wellington to the World returns on the 17th of November. Unlimited Potential are once again managing this annual technology showcase aimed at further cultivating the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Included in this year’s stellar speaker line-up are Read Write Web founder Richard MacManus, McDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year John Watt and Ben Young author, entrepreneur and social media guru. The event revolves around pitches from local tech entrepreneurs and presentations from the cutting edge of ICT research.

The central theme for W2W is “going global from New Zealand” so video content from the event is circulated to KEA‘s global network. Entrepreneurs from last year actually received phone calls from investors in the United States after seeing the online video content. Business intelligence software developer Futrix secured direct assistance from W2W co-sponsor UKTI to establish a market presence in Europe, after they presented at last year’s event.

Registrations are essential for this key event that aims to build bridges between technology innovators, entrepreneurs and investors.

http://www.up.org.nz/w2w09/

EDTalks Symposium

If you are planning to head to the capital for W2W, why not stay on for EdTalks the following day? The symposium will attract educators and officialdom from around New Zealand to hear about technology, learning, creativity and innovation. The programme looks great if you are in this field.

http://www.core-ed.net/edtalks-symposium

Icehouse Fast Pitch 2009

Fast Pitch is a real-life Dragon’s Den style business pitch competition for Kiwi entrepreneurs. Last year’s winner of the Best Funding Opportunity for Investors category was Sam Ng from Wellington. His company, Optimal Workshop, develops specialised feedback to enable software developers a way of getting and following-up feedback from end users. The programme offers pitching workshops and personal coaching and is great value at only $85.

Multicore Computing MiniConf

Interested in multicore and parallel computing? Come along to the MiniConf at the Linux conference in January. Multicore and parallel computing is an emerging area that promises to spawn some of the high growth businesses of the future. If you are a technology entrepreneur or investor, computing science researcher or software developer, the miniconf may well be of interest.

iwantmynameION Spotlight – Beetil

Beetil is a web-based service management solution by Wellington developers YouDo. Based around the ITIL framework, Beetil provides a seamless and easy to use framework for I.T. support and compliance. YouDo co-founder Dan Lee says that Beetil simplifies service management for small and medium enterprises who aren’t looking for a highly complex system. Beetil not only handles fault management, but also compliance around software changes. Users can also control customer access permissions through a unique portal set-up.

http://www.beetil.com/

Got an enterprising Kiwi tech story to share? I want your name! ION Spotlight is kindly supported by iWantMyName New Zealand’s most innovative global domain registrar.

ION Homepage Makeover

In case you have been wondering what has happened to our homepage – fear not. During October we plan to spend some time tidying up the site and returning it to its former glory. In the meantime you can still reach the ION forum here.

Got an event or story related to innovation or entrepreneurship in New Zealand? We’d love to place it in our bi-monthly newsletter. Reply to this blog or catch up on Twitter @GeniusNet.

BB Build Begs Benefits

Posted on by
Reply

It is certainly a relief to finally see some leadership from the government in terms of their expectations around the broadband rollout. But in 5-10 years time when the project is finally complete will we have found a way to leverage this huge investment of public funds?

Industry ginger groups are being politely optimistic about the plan but it remains to be seen for how long the honeymoon lasts. Telecommunications is a highly political arena with many vested interests. Indications that the Crown Fibre Holding company will remain a Crown entity rather than a commercial state owned enterprise are certainly encouraging however; because the last thing we need is the new network being flogged off to an incumbent player or other foreign controlled interests at some point in the future.

But what are we going to use high speed broadband networks for once they are built? One would like to think that there will be more lofty social benefits than facilitating faster access to pornography, violent online games and moronic TV shows. Of course despite all the clamour by telcos and their equipment suppliers for a bite of the apple, we have never yet seen a properly articulated explanation of exactly what the social and economic return will be.

That aside, there is a wonderful window of opportunity for the government here. Surely we now need to provide an innovation challenge to stimulate the development of novel online services? Imagine how many creative new start-up companies could be kick-started. It seems glaringly obvious, but this aspect of the plan appears to have been somewhat overlooked as the government instead heavily promotes cowshit and tourism as our economic saviours.

There is another issue that has been overlooked as well. Until New Zealand gets access to better bandwidth and some decent competition on networks across the Pacific,  improving domestic connectivity is likely to have only a limited overall effect on economic growth.

Govt Aims to Improve Science Dialogue

Posted on by
2

The Prime Ministerial advisor on science, Prof. Peter Gluckman is hoping to facilitate a better dialogue both within the science community and between scientists and the New Zealand government. He may have an uphill climb ahead of him.

In a recent radio interview Gluckman made it clear that his brief was simply to provide advice and to act as a translator to both government and public on science issues, it was not his role to become involved in politics. But when pressed on the subject of why the National government killed both the Fast Forward initiative and the R&D tax incentive scheme, he refused to comment. This suggests that (at least in public) he will be obliged to moderate his tone on some topics.

Professor Gluckman said better scientific literacy was required across the whole of society because we were having to deal with more complex issues such as climate change and the ever increasing impact of technology on our personal lives. He also indicated that it was his view that the science funding system was overly competitive and that this was dampening creativity; perhaps foreshadowing some much needed change in this area.

Prime Minister John Key recently gave a speech on economic direction. It was clearly signalled that, in terms of science research, the government is now primarily interested in supporting the agricultural sector as a bridge to greater economic prosperity. Unfortunately that confines us to a future of increasing pastoral pollution, high carbon output and enslavement to commodity prices that continually devalue in real terms.

But Gluckman agrees with his colleague Paul Callaghan that science must remain “an integral part of the innovation system” and that we need more high tech companies like Navman, Rakon and Weta Digital. If we are to improve economic productivity then science needs to connect with business, both within New Zealand and abroad, he stated. It will be interesting to see if he can similarly persuade the Prime Minister.

How Safe is Your Digital Identity?

Posted on by
2

iwantmyname_logo_50The ongoing saga around the threatened discontinuation of url shortener tr.im plus the recent DOS attacks on Twitter are chilling reminders that your personal data is far from secure on the Internet. It also raises philosophical questions about the transient nature of knowledge on the Web. So where should we turn?

It’s a little unclear whether or not the tr.im panic was reality or just a cleverly orchestrated publicity stunt, but it doesn’t matter. What this incident reminds us is that when it comes to Internet content, we are all at the whim of the service providers. Whether it be business data, webmail, blogs, images or short links, if your favourite free service tanks – it can cause a lot of disruption.

Much of the trust we place in hosted web services hinges on the assumption that they will remain in perpetuity. Furthermore, we like to believe that such services are secure and that our personal data will not be abused. Are those fair assumptions? Even the big guys have server downtime and most don’t publish monthly reports on their financial stability. How can we feel confident that the best interests of end users are being served?

Don’t get me wrong. I like using services in the cloud and I’m 99% happy with what they provide. I also think tr.im is a very neat and user-friendly product and I’m sure they will find a way forward. However, it is a fairly straightforward exercise to set up your own personal url shortener service within your own branded domain name. Over at iWantMyName we’ve come up with a list of providers who can help you set up your own url shortener service. In some cases these services offer link portability – but you must own your own domain to do this.

But what if the domain name system (DNS) itself gets taken down? Well never say never. What we do know is that, despite it’s failings, the DNS system keeps chugging along and has done so for many years. It also has a powerful and well resourced regulatory body. The strength of the domain registration industry business model should ensure its longevity, unlike some other service offerings on the Web. So if you want to properly protect and control your digital identity, find an ethical, user-centric and innovative domain registrar such as iWantMyName and secure the web domains that you need.

Update – here’s a great article from LifeHacker assessing risks in the cloud:

http://lifehacker.com/5325169/the-hidden-risks-of-cloud-computing

Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Posted on by
2

seedlingI can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve attended recently where I was involved in explaining the importance of having an entrepreneurial ecosystem within which to grow high value technology ventures. Unfortunately it can be hard work explaining why social capital is important when people are focused solely on linear metrics.

Recently I was inspired by a great success story that powerfully underlined my long held belief that building healthy communities and networks is an essential aspect of cultivating an entrepreneurial ecosystem. This is especially so in New Zealand where we are disadvantaged by our distance from the major consumer and capital markets of the world. But that disadvantage can be overcome by leveraging the creative boundaries where local networks overlap with those offshore.

Networks have  multiplier effects, as witnessed by the density of economic activity found in Silicon Valley. By building and maintaining social capital in our local technology sector we are establishing the pre-conditions for new economic life and the basis for small seedlings to grow into very large Kauri trees. But it takes time, 5 to 7 years for a good idea to develop into a viable business and then emerge as a high growth venture. Unfortunately this timeframe can be a problem for sponsoring organisations which rely on political support for their existence.

Investors in technology start-ups typically take a 5 to 10 year view of how much time will be required to launch, grow and then exit a high value business. But securing investment in the entrepreneurial ecosystem that underpins such ventures can be highly problematic because social capital is intangible and cannot be transacted. However, building the ecosystem is about making the pie bigger for everyone. Please consider supporting initiatives such as Unlimited Potential and Global Entrepreneurship Week if we come knocking at your door.

Innovate at the Point of Pain

Posted on by
3

I get a lot of ideas across my desk and I’ve learnt the hard way that you need to question everything before offering to back someone else’s idea with your own reputation. One of the first questions I ask aspiring technology entrepreneurs is – what is the problem you are trying to solve?

This may seem like an obvious question but you would be surprised how many projects are launched on the basis of a good idea rather than upon a soundly researched market. It pays to question the market data as well because, after spending hundreds of hours on development, an enthusiastic technologist will do just about anything to justify their emotional investment in a product.

Many great ventures began as a personal point of pain for the founder. But the ones that survived were those that actually identified a mass market and then went on to execute well. A good idea on its own is not enough and the fact that there is “no competition” is not a selling point either. You need competitors for benchmarking and to validate that a market really exists.

For example at ideegeo we made a conscious decision to build a domain registrar site that rejected traditional norms of presentation because we observed that a lot of people really disliked having to grapple with poor navigation and invasive advertising found on other sites. Although the product caters for a design-centric niche user base, it turned out to be a winner because other companies approached us to help them improve their own offering.

Before you write a line of code or partition off your first protein molecule, ask yourself – where is the point of pain? What is the problem that you are trying to solve and are there a million other consumers out there who are suffering the same pain? If you can answer that question objectively and in the affirmative, you might just have a successful product on your hands.

There is Snow Recession in New Zealand

Posted on by
1

remarkablesRecently I indulged my eight year son with a short holiday down south, including a day on the slopes at the very scenic Remarkables range. He’s already a very competent skier and full of confidence after only one season. In contrast, I spent most of the day sitting on my backside wondering why snow-boards do not have brakes installed – design flaw no doubt. But my son’s lack of fear provided me with some insight into what a difference attitude makes.

The recession may have dulled most travelers’ enthusiasm for spending in the short term; but the southern lakes region actually managed a small increase in visitor overnights in the past year. The “world’s adventure capital” must be one of the few places in which commercial and residential real estate development continues unabated and there remains a steady stream of incoming buses, boats and aircraft overflowing with families and young backpackers. Sure there has been the odd mortgagee sale and some of the trendy apparel retailers were a obviously bit quiet. But the town retains an optimistic feel about it, even in the midst of winter.

My point is that attitude can take you  long way. If other tiny Pacific Island nations can refuse to “participate” in the recession – why can’t we also? If positive-minded, friendly and engaging tourism industry employees and entrepreneurs can keep local economies ticking over – why can’t we apply this mindset to the whole country? And I don’t just mean tourism. Singapore has Biopolis, the U.S. has Silicon Valley and India has Bangalore. Regional resource advantage can be channelled by deliberate agglomeration, especially when there is sufficient access to capital and intellectual talent.

You can write good software code and draw up financial contracts just as easily from a villa overlooking beautiful Lake Wakatipu as you can from an office block in Palo Alto. So instead of polluting our landscape producing commodities that continually drop in price, we should be inviting entrepreneurs from offshore to base themselves here to create new enterprises and wealth whilst enjoying the scenery. The only crisis in well endowed New Zealand is one of lack of confidence.

Cow-shit and Candyfloss Overcomes High Tech

Posted on by
4

In an interview for Unlimited Magazine, physicist and technology entrepreneur Paul Callaghan recounts meeting Prime Minister John Key at a business function. The PM had just stepped off the speaker’s podium where he had been talking up agriculture and tourism and expressing scepticism about the value of New Zealand’s technology sector to the economy. If that is the kind of leadership we are faced with, then I fear that the devaluation of our economic potential will continue unabated.

And before I’m accused over being overly harsh, let’s just look at this government’s track record since taking office well over six months ago:

  • Research & development tax credit reduced then cut altogether.
  • Fast Forward programme wiped and replaced with identical project with less funding.
  • I.T. worker redundancies from government agencies.
  • Negligible budget increase to RS&T vote.
  • Major cuts to tertiary education funding.
  • NZ Innovation Centre loses $15M in funding.
  • Reported $100M net loss to market development assistance programmes for exporters.

To be fair, we all knew that the Budget needed to be tough – even if Key and English can’t agree exactly why. Certainly borrowing to fund superannuation and tax cuts doesn’t make good fiscal sense; but neither does knee-capping your research, science and technology capability. To its credit, the government did provide additional resources to the Marsden Fund and a one-off operational grant to REANNZ the high speed research network. In the latter case, they obviously could not be seen to allow the research network to fail, whilst at the same time pouring billions into digging trenches for a brand new domestic network for which a proper economic business case has yet to be made.

Investing in and commercialising research will never be cheaper than today and you can be sure that our competitors in America and Europe are continuing to do it. I’ve said it before – when I look around town, it is the businesses that have invested in developing new technology that are still growing. It seems like the government is signalling it wishes to play less of a role in this arena. Dairy commodity prices are dropping again, so too are visitor numbers. The PM’s support for agriculture and tourism is no doubt uplifting for the cow-shit and candyfloss brigades, but it does little to bolster our GDP per capita output in the long term.

Wool to Weta by Paul Callaghan is available at all good bookstores and explains why research, science and technology is important to the New Zealand economy and why a unified vision is needed.

Innovation, Property Rights and the Political Economy

Posted on by
2

In recent months I have noticed an elevated volume of commentary relating to the overlap between economic development and the political expression of property ownership rights. Part of this debate has been driven by sea changes on the political landscape and new analysis of the role previous governments have played through intervening in markets. Last week’s OECD report card on New Zealand fanned the flames of this debate to a new level.

The report suggests that previous governments have consistently failed to address historically poor levels of productivity and innovation. In the face of a global economic emergency there is a strong call for urgent action to reconfigure policy on this front.

“New Zealand’s living standards remain well below the OECD average. This is entirely attributable to persistently low labour productivity, which in turn is related to economic geography as well as structural policy factors. The small size and remoteness of the economy diminish its access to world markets, the scale and efficiency of domestic businesses, the level of competition and proximity to the world’s technology frontier. This points to the need for a “New Zealand policy advantage”, that is, a set of structural policies attractive and welcoming enough to overcome the geographic handicap and attract the drivers of prosperity – investment, skills and ideas – to New Zealand.”

Innovation, property rights and the political economy are intertwined. For example without a robust framework for the protection of intellectual property there is little incentive to innovate and generate economic returns from new ideas. But implicit in the OECD calls for macroeconomic restructuring is the suggestion that Crown assets be sold to address fiscal debt. This remarkably unoriginal idea seems to mysteriously surface every time a National government is elected.

Some have argued that New Zealand’s historically interventionist approach has discouraged investment in innovation and critical infrastructure. However, hurried or ill considered sales of State assets (originally funded by taxpayers) in some respects seems contradictory to ongoing academic arguments that favour less intervention, more consistency and the protection of unalienable rights to property. How do we reconcile these positions? Should we be doing so? As was once proposed, would it not be better to leverage the capital invested in State owned enterprises to create new, high value spin-off ventures?

Of course the situation is complicated in New Zealand by the fact that Maori have strong views in terms of property rights, securing favourable State regulation and the connection this makes with their own economic development aspirations. But can we promote a free and unfettered market with strongly protected property rights on the one hand whilst at the same time contemplating separate justice and electoral systems and the wholesale transfers of property assets based on race? External investors no doubt also weigh these risks when considering New Zealand as a destination.