Top innovators will share stories

This year's Young Innovators Awards (YIA) Innovation Forum will kick off at Tauranga's Trinity Wharf

This year's Young Innovators Awards (YIA) Innovation Forum kicks off at Tauranga's Trinity Wharf on August 7 with a stellar speaker lineup of six leading New Zealand innovators.

The forum was established in 2013, when some of NZ's top innovators were invited to judge the YIA, a Bay of Plenty initiative that asks secondary school students and the local business community to enter an idea for an innovative product or service. The submissions are judged by the panel of innovators, who then share their own stories at the forum.

The YIA winners will be announced on August 6 at the Western Bay At Work Launch, ASB Park Arena, with the supreme winner taking home a prize of up to $8500.

"Attendees at the forum will be surprised, delighted and entertained by six exceptional speakers, all with a unique take on innovation across a range of fields including music, food technology, digital entrepreneurship, the internet and aquaculture," said YIA project manager Stacey Jones.

This year's judges include:

-Barry Vercoe - Professor emeritus MIT Media Laboratory, co-founder One Laptop per Child Australia, One Education.

-Simon Fraser - the first professor of industrial design at the School of Design, Victoria University, who spent more than two decades at Porsche Design in Austria.

-Dr Wayne Munro - chief technology officer and co-founder of SLI Systems.

-John Illingsworth - executive director of OceaNZ Blue, who created New Zealand's largest paua farm.

-Peter Tinholt - general manager of leading fruit-based ingredients company Taura Natural Ingredients.

-Jenene Crossan - founder of Flossie.com, nzgirl.co.nz and bloggersclub.com, who is also keynote speaker.