AUT Technology Park chief executive Jonathan Kirkpatrick relishes a point of difference between the incubator that he runs and other Auckland incubators.
This difference is that his group has links with a Government-sponsored business incubator in Singapore.
Launched in January 2000, AUT's incubator is located in Penrose, in what was the heart
of the old Fletcher Challenge empire.
This year, Technology Park - which also provides space for university research groups and other IT-related companies as well as startups - expanded into Ron Trotter House next door, effectively doubling available space.
Kirkpatrick says AUT Technology Park's wings have spread and it has scored a coup by being the first New Zealand university, in a joint-venture with Trade New Zealand, to establish itself in Phase Z.ro - an incubator in Singapore's new multi-billion-dollar cyber-city development called One North.
Technology Park believed the opportunity to launch its predominantly software-based companies directly into the big Asian consumer market from a Singapore base was too good to miss.
Already Kirkpatrick has taken some fledgling companies to Singapore and another group will present themselves to potential Singaporean investors, distributors and JV partners and clients at the NZ Centre at Phase Z.ro in March.
"We're not going to limit ourselves to Singapore," said Kirkpatrick. "But obviously we want to cut our teeth in Singapore by taking young embryonic companies into export markets far sooner than they otherwise would have been."
Phase Z.ro is already proving a success for AUT's innovative enterprises: both Technology Park start-ups and commercial business, as well as university research projects and commercialisation initiatives.
Technology Park enables entrepreneurs and researchers to investigate and realise the commercial potential of their ideas in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, neural computing, mobile, bio-medical and educational technologies.
"At Penrose, AUT can quickly get on with doing what it wants to do best - developing innovative projects that will promote the growth in New Zealand of world-class technological skills," said Professor Phillip Sallis, AUT's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Development).
"We hope that by working with innovative start-up firms we can contribute positively to the knowledge infrastructure in New Zealand and successfully retain and repatriate talented New Zealanders," he said.
Services available to help start-up businesses successfully reach market launch stage include:
* Business advice and mentoring by professionals.* Opportunities for collaboration with other start-ups and university researchers.* Opportunities for networking with the commercial sector.* Opportunities to attend a regular seminar series.
Support is by way of some services provided either free or charged for on an agreed basis.
Among the successes: mobile specialist Parochus, already "hatched" from the incubator, won a $100,000 research grant from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
Parochus is researching the synchronisation, transmission, compression and encryption of data over GPRS and CDMA cellular networks, along with the presentation and manipulation of that data on to hand-held devices, laptops and desktops.
It was one of the companies that Kirkpatrick has taken up to Singapore.
"They were very popular among the venture capitalists which queued up to see them," said Kirkpatrick.
"You don't expect to got to Singapore and come back with a cheque ... it's about relationship building, but I think they have done very well."
Zenago Intelligent Communications was also on the first Singapore mission and was successful in sorting out distribution networks using the Phase Z.ro centre as a "virtual office".
"Neither of these companies would have in the traditional sense been export ready, but the product lifecycle of software is just far too steep and turnover far too rapid not to move fast," said Kirkpatrick.
Technology Park resident GeoVector is working on positioning and pointing technology for the mobile phone users.
It will enable the user's location to be pinpointed and also determine which way they are pointing.
The technology is seen to have potential in areas of tourism, navigation, mobile commerce, entertainment and mobile gaming.
GeoVector's Aaron Judson said the park had been "very flexible".
"The meeting rooms are fantastic, certainly. I've conducted a lot of my meetings with large New Zealand corporates and members here.
"I don't hesitate to tell them to come to me. So now what we're finding is that they may struggle to kick us out. We like the space, we like the location. It was exactly what we were looking for."
AUT Technology Park
Herald feature:
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report - 2002
AUT Technology Park chief executive Jonathan Kirkpatrick relishes a point of difference between the incubator that he runs and other Auckland incubators.
This difference is that his group has links with a Government-sponsored business incubator in Singapore.
Launched in January 2000, AUT's incubator is located in Penrose, in what was the heart
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