Craig Richardson: Hi tech PPPs can deliver economic growth

Craig Richardson, Wynyard Group. Photo / Sam Frost

Craig Richardson discusses the potential for New Zealand sourced public-private partnerships in global markets.

Ingenuity and invention are characteristics that define our country.

The success of our hi-tech sector has put New Zealand on the world stage of innovation at a time when capital markets globally are flush with cash and searching the high growth investments.

These investments create the high value companies and high value jobs that create high growth economies.

Less recognised is the innovation in our public sector.

Frequently criticised for being bureaucratic, unimaginative and late adopters, I regularly see pockets of genius in our government departments.

Those departments are not mandated or resourced to commerialise or sometimes even operationalise their inventions so they frequently gather dust on the shelf of good ideas, are given away to other countries or stolen by opportunistic international consulting companies who charge us eye watering daily fees to pick our pockets.

One way of leveraging public-sector innovation, successfully operationalising and commercialising public-sector innovation and creating fulfilling careers for our brightest workers is through public-private partnerships.

The private sector has the knowledge, skills, experience and drivers to help the public sector exploit its innovations.

Their survival depends on them knowing what the rest of the world wants; they have the capability to package know-how as products and services; they have channels to market and the drivers to maximise returns.

So why aren't we doing it?

Well, we are, but we can do much more and our thinking shouldn't be constrained to long lead-time, resource intensive, complex agriculture, aquaculture or education public-private partnerships.

We can get other hi-tech ideas to market much, much faster.

Two of New Zealand's most successful hi-tech companies, Orion Health and Wynyard Group have proven the value of public-private collaboration through their partnerships with the New Zealand health and justice sectors respectively.

Wynyard is commercialising the digital forensics know-how of New Zealand Police and has already successfully commercialised Australian Federal Police investigation know-how it its advanced crime analytics platform.

Together the public and private sector can solve local problems ranging from high volume crime, children at risk, cyber and organised crime, while at the same time commercialising these methods, products and services for export.

To this end, Wynyard is already working with NZTE and MFAT on opportunities in emerging countries which look to New Zealand's enviable record on crime reduction and justice sector know-how.

Public-private partnerships are not rocket science. They are built on relationships.

They are not about aligning objectives, they are about creating opportunities where private and public sector objectives can co-exist for a better outcome.

By definition, that means a high level of trust, openness and commitment from both participants to outcome, and to solve conflicts if and when they arise.

At the end of the day, public-private partnerships are about leadership.

In my role as a director of Callaghan Innovation and as managing director of Wynyard Group, I see significant social good and commercial opportunities for partnerships between New Zealand's hi-tech companies and the public sector.

It's not about buying and selling more to each other, it's an opportunity to solve local problems and sell the answers to the rest of the world.

• Craig Richardson is Wynyard Group Managing Director.