The technology and innovation sector is experiencing some impressive growth. With strong productivity and high-value jobs, technology now stands alongside New Zealand’s traditional economic pillars. The Technology Investment Report reveals that last year alone, early-stage tech companies in Auckland attracted 125 investment deals worth $397 million. That’s 65% of nationwide investment and this is growing. We must make the most of it.
It’s why I’ve identified this sector in my manifesto as one of three key areas where I believe a fortune of opportunity lies. It’s why I’ve stood up the new Auckland Innovation and Technology Alliance. The alliance will foster collaboration, attract investment, and provide strategic leadership to strengthen Auckland’s position as a global tech hub. In other words – grow more businesses and export more.
Things like the alliance will make sure the chatter at these events turns into real-world benefits for Aucklanders. I look forward to seeing the outcomes produced by strengthened connections between universities, the private sector, and the government that it will bring, with programmes like this one.
Economic growth now lies city-to-city, not country-to-country, and I’m looking forward to lending my business connections to this sector to both make the most of tech here, and get NZ tech out to the world.
I’d like to thank the private sector in assisting to get it going. It is public-private partnerships that are the most successful and when private outfits invest, you know you’re onto a good thing.
Startup Week is just one part of how the council is showing support on the ground, working with partners who know what they’re doing to help local entrepreneurs get on with growing their businesses.
We’ve had more than 10 successful years with GridAKL driving economic growth and entrepreneurship. GridAKL has generated $424m annually towards Auckland’s economy.
We have strong support from the Auckland Business Chamber, the Committee for Auckland and Tech Council, the University of Auckland, and many others across the sector. We also have some exciting companies down the road in Parnell doing brainy stuff – like precision fermentation, creating brain pressure sensors and developing new methods of energy storage.
Startup Week sets to galvanise existing these networks already in the region, and is part of a bigger, planned drive for growth in the sector. Coming soon, we will also have the new, larger GridAKL hub in Manukau. Auckland is the tech city of New Zealand, and it will become the premier tech hub of the South Pacific.
The Government has also seen sense and answered our call to establish the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Technology in Auckland.
While there are pockets of brilliance happening all around the country, Auckland is unquestionably New Zealand’s startup capital. Auckland has the most significant funds investing in New Zealand start-ups: Uniservices, Icehouse Ventures, Outset Ventures, Bridgewest Ventures and others such as Movac and the NZPCG. Auckland has the two largest universities in New Zealand – right in the city centre.
We’re not starting from scratch. We’re building on the groundwork done by many.
We hope to see Auckland Startup Week become an annual fixture, but year-round we’ll be pressing on ahead with the alliance, working alongside the institute and continuing all the good work that goes on at GridAKL and many others. This is important given how technology and innovation are so central to Auckland’s future growth.
New Zealanders have always been innovators. We are the idea-makers; let’s make it easier for these ideas to be used here and be exported to the world.
With the alliance, the institute and the existing ecosystem of innovation here, we are now ready to do just that.
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