Our stories
How grassroots innovation turned around the youth vote after decades of decline
“The rules are made by the people who turn up” - that was one of many slogans for the RockEnrol campaign in 2014. Why? Because we had learned that when it came to voting for the rulemakers, 3 out of 5 young Kiwis weren’t turning up.[i] Young people make up 20% of the...
Interesting things that I learned
When Shaun Hendy offered me the chance to write a blog for this project, I jumped at the opportunity. I have been working for interesting and innovative organisations who trade in knowledge for over 10 years, and before that I was a patent examiner – so the...
Innovation is the key to survival in business
This doesn't seem to be a universally accepted proposition in New Zealand. The total innovation rate for New Zealand businesses is less than 50%. Think Walkman and iPod. Innovation can kill a product. Think Blockbuster and Netflix. Innovation can kill a company....
It’s Just Innovation
The first time I visited a prison, I was 12 years old. I went with my father and a group of musicians to hold a church service for the inmates. We repeated the service in various parts of the prison, and in the minimum security wing I was allowed to sit and talk with...
What’s so innovative about innovation?
Innovation is bandied about as the word “de rigueur” – it would seem we all need to be innovative and it’s even become the subject of surveys in national newspapers. A recent New Zealand Herald article reported 97% of bosses saying their organisation has an innovation...
Innovation in a small, Māori, non-for-profit
Te Hiku Media is a charitable media organisation, collectively belonging to the Far North iwi of Ngāti Kuri, Te Aupouri, Ngai Takoto, Te Rārawa and Ngāti Kahu. The station is an iwi communications hub for radio and online media. Māori language revitalisation is a core...
Innovate the vote
Our mates at Figure.NZ and Te Pūnaha Matatini have asked us to talk about what innovation means to us. As the Innovation Partnership we bring together like minds to drive digital innovation in New Zealand. We believe that if we can put digital at the centre of our...
The Number 8 RE-wire
Agriculture used to be New Zealand’s main bread and butter. Our small Pacific nation at the edge of the earth was bred on a “number eight wire” mentality, where ingenuity and resourcefulness was at the core of what we did, and the number of sheep was ten-fold the...
Reframing Innovation
Innovation has become a bit of a cliché. The word has graced the spine of one-too-many books in the business section. As someone who researches and writes about innovation I find this painful to say but, if I’m honest, there was a whiff of the naughties about it in...
Siouxsie Wiles – Blake Leader 2016
Congratulations to Te Pūnaha Matatini's Acting Deputy Director Dr Siouxsie Wiles who was named a Blake Leader 2016 from the Sir Peter Blake Trust on July 1. Siouxsie leads the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland. She has spearheaded many efforts...
NZ innovation reframed by leading figures
New Zealand’s leading thinkers and doers are out to reframe innovation in a series of online data-driven discussions from August 1-5. Technical expert Keoni Mahelona and Antarctic researcher Dr Victoria Metcalfe are just some of the leading figures coming together to...
Meet the team: Q&A with Tava Olsen
Meet Professor Tava Olsen from the University of Auckland. Tava is a Director at the New Zealand Centre for Supply Chain Management and was recently appointed Deputy Director - Industry and Stakeholder Engagement here at Te Pūnaha Matatini. Tava brings with her a...