Business Is Boring

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Shaun Edlin, CEO of Dotterel, and Richard Quin, Callaghan Innovation Group Manager.This week’s podcast is a bit different, we’re going to be hearing from an entrepreneur about their company and journey - and also from the people behind the C-Prize, a competition that our entrepreneur’s company Dotterel took part in that’s helped take their innovations to the world. Dotterel are a drone noise reduction company, they make technology that means drones don’t drone so much - allowing for things like stealth defence work and screen industry audio recording. CEO Shaun Edlin joined us to talk about how the C-Prize helped spur them on, and open up new markets.The C-Prize challenges New Zealand innovators to use new technologies to tackle complex global problems with creativity and inventiveness, is open to New Zealand innovators and comes with a great big cash reward and support component. And this year the prize is now open to anyone with an idea that could make a difference in solving environmental challenges. Ten finalists are picked and mentored through a programme, with one taking out the award. To learn more about how it works and how you can enter, Richard Quin, Callaghan Innovation Group Manager joined us with the full story with Sean from Dotterel. Listen below and find out more about the C-Prize here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Ian Taylor, founder of of Animation Research Ltd.This week on Business is Boring we have Ian Taylor - a man who has used science and technology to tell new stories in sport, movies and culture. His company Animation Research Limited has pioneered graphics that became world famous with the America’s Cup, and he has now set out to tell one of the great, barely-told stories of New Zealand. New Zealand Aotearoa has one of the world’s most amazing stories of navigation and exploration, yet for years when it was taught it was only Cook and Tasman named as our discoverers. Kupe has long been written off as a story, a Maori 'legend', and the seafaring feats of journeying across the ocean of the first people of New Zealand were labelled an accident.Everyone has heard of Cook. How many know that great navigator only got his way in and out of trouble across the Pacific with the aid of Tupaia, a Tahitian navigator who he picked up along the way to help the Endeavour find its way here, and help with translating the Maori language to Cook and his men? Who really knew how murderous Cook’s first visit was, his crew killing people all around the country?We’ve failed to tell the stories that didn’t make the Pākehā expedition look good. But the tide is now turning.Recently the government announced the history of Aotearoa's colonisation and the Land Wars will now be widely taught in schools, and Ian Taylor has been working to bring information about New Zealand's true discovery, by the Polynesian navigators, to life.Taylor's company Animation Research Limited, from Dunedin, has grown to become the world leader in sports graphics. If you’ve seen an America’s Cup race, watched a game of golf or cricket, you'd have seen his tech. As pioneers in computer graphics, Animation Research Limited were responsible for everything from the dancing Bluebird Penguin ad to Hollywood scenes and everything in-between. Ian Taylor is leading the team, and winning gongs for innovating, but has now also turned his eye to making sure we all know our history so we can build from it, with his project the voyage.co.nz.To talk the journey, our stories and what’s next, Ian joined the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Tim Brown, Co-founder of AllBirds.This weeks’ podcast has an extra special guest that has recently been on the minds, and feet, of people all around the world.It was a great chance to talk about a journey from New Zealand to the very top of the fashion industry, and Allbirds co-CEO Tim Brown turned up for an honest, engaging and helpful chat about what it takes to build something different, and what it takes personally and professionally to keep stepping up in terms of scale and expectations.It’s a story now famous in Aotearoa. A few short years ago a New Zealand professional footballer has a dream for a shoe made out of wool, and lots of our podcast listeners will have followed every step along the way.For many that first moment might have been seeing a Former All White fronting a Kickstarter project with the great overview video for a new merino wool shoe you could wear without socks. From there this Allbirds idea has grown and grown through the first signs that this little concept from New Zealand was getting worldwide notice, through to investment, great media notices, huge sales, and AllBirds stores opening up in the world’s great retail areas, and now, a store in Auckland.Although success can make things seem like it was a sure bet, it was, in the words of the founder and today’s guest, ‘a bad idea for a long time before it was a good one’. To find out how bad idea can turn into something quite wonderful, to chat the journey to here, and to hear what’s next, Allbirds founder Tim Brown joined the podcast you can find just below. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Erik Zydervelt, Founding Director and CEO of Mevo.This week the Business is Boring Podcast chats to the founder of a revolutionary new ride share program, prominent in Wellington and with big plans. It’s the future, it’s electric, it’s the vibe, it’s Mevo. This is an interesting one. In a few years people will probably be looking back and thinking it was absolutely bananas how many people had cars, and how little they used them.If you think about it, having an asset that you use less than an hour a day, yet where you are responsible for every bit of depreciation, servicing, insurance, risk and upkeep, well it doesn’t seem the brightest model. And as cities begin to price in all the free space they are given in the form of road parking; as automation advances; and as urban density increases; the days of every family having 2 cars are looking pretty much numbered. But the thing is, cars can be really handy, and although you may not be best to own one, having access to them can be a real win. So around the world car-share services, and car on-demand services are springing up, and in Wellington, New Zealand, a particularly interesting home-grown one is in operation.Mevo allows users to open an app, find a near-by plug-in hybrid Audi, unlock it with their phone, hire it by the hour, and then when finished, park it in any metered park in most of Wellington central so long as it is run by the council. And then you just walk away. It’s the convenience of a Lime scooter, except sanctioned by councils and cutting down road clutter instead of adding to it. The idea has launched with some impressive backers on the board, and with investment from Z and Audi NZ and with a novel carbon positive approach to offsetting emissions - they sequester 120% of what you make, and into rainforests that will actually retain the carbon. It’s a cool idea, with thousands of users, many ditching their cars, and it is becoming part of the transport mix in Wellington. To talk the journey, where it could go from here, and what transport might look like into the future, Erik Zydervelt joined the podcast, that you can find below. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Hamish Pinkham, founder and creative director of R & VThis week’s podcast tells the story of how a few mates turned a party for friends into one of the biggest events in New Zealand. There is a lot that is unlikely about the story: the people, the place, the success…. and it was never assured. It’s taken a lot of risk, determination, wrong turns and hard times to make R & V such an event that for you to know it all we have to say is its initials.In 2003 a group of mates threw a party for 400 people in a vineyard in Gisborne. 2000 people came and it began what has become a festival that is famous on the world stage and a rite of passage for kiwi youth. Rhythm and Vines grew and grew. From small beginnings they added days to the event, Internationals, camping, comedy and a whole roster of other ticketed events they promoted. But they grew a bit far a bit fast and some of the things that made the festival feel special were lost. After what was called a riot in their secondary campground they went back to basics, and have rebuilt the festival into a safer, friendlier, smaller and more curated affair. There have been highs and lows, big wins and financial losses, and last year news came that our guest this week on the podcast. Hamish Pinkham, founder and creative director of the festival had sold half the business to one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, Live Nation.He is still guiding the ship, but has the help of a much bigger network to land acts, run and fund the event. He is still booking the acts and curating the festival, but is now also able to step into some new ventures like The Phoenix Summit, an entertainment industry event in September.To talk the journey to here and what is next, Hamish Pinkham joined the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Paris Georgia's Paris Mitchell Temple and Georgia Cherrie. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you take a step back and look at it, it is kind of bananas that New Zealand went from no real cafe culture, to having a coffee so associated with down-under - the flat white -now ubiquitous around the world.This episode of Business is Boring talks to a man who has as much to do with bringing great coffee here, and then taking that back to the world, as anyone else in the country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to R&D programme leader Dr Peter Surman and Simone Hollier.Did you know that there is a local pharmaceutical company in the second stage of trials to use ketamine to treat depression - and that they're looking for people to participate in the trial? Well, here's a podcast for you dear listener. For this week's Business is Boring we meet two of the 800 workers at a very under-the-radar local drug maker. You might be surprised to know New Zealand has a big Pharma company, and you could also be forgiven for not knowing at all that it was almost sold off, but in this half hour chat we learn about the history, current work and future plans of Douglas Pharmaceuticals.Douglas is a family-owned drug giant, that since 1967 has grown from a company making generic drugs once they fell out of patent- which is more of a difficult process than that makes that sound - to now be researching new uses for previously proven safe drugs. The company does upwards of $250m a year, with the bulk of that as exports, and was almost sold a few years ago before deciding there was a future, here.Part of that future is bringing new talent on board, and a strong R&D programme, led by Dr Peter Surman, the Chief Scientific Officer and 23 year member of the company. This podcast chats to him and Simone Hollier, a New Product Portfolio Analyst, who Douglas took on through an R&D experience grant that is available through Callaghan Innovation (a grant that many companies are able to access). To find out more about getting students into your research, the growth of the company, and making drugs, here, please enjoy this chat with Dr Peter Surman and Simone Hollier. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Flamingo Scooters CEO and co-founder's Nick Hyland and Jacksen Love.Around Auckland lately, and Wellington for a little longer, you might have noticed a bunch of bright pink scooters popping up, and this week’s Business is Boring podcast meets the two twenty-something kiwi guys behind this company. It’s no trivial feat to launch such an enterprise, especially when you are taking on some of the world’s biggest and best funded companies. How do they do it?Co-Founders Nick Hyland and Jacksen Love of Flamingo Scooters first got properly started in Wellington, where, after a long process, Wellington Council approved two scooter companies to take part in an 18 month trial to see how last-mile mobility could work for the Capital. One was Jump, a division of mega transport company Uber, one of the biggest companies in the world, and one was Flamingo, New Zealand owned, and run by two blokes in their 20s. Their brand is a vibrant pink, it uses the same high quality Segway scooters as Jump (better than the Lime ones many might be familiar with) and they do some cool things like offering free helmets for users, and some rigorous rules around safety and parking.They launched in Wellington in the middle of June, and at the end of July launched their full fleet of 500 odd scooters on the streets of Auckland.The chat this week covers how it was that two chaps came to be taking on the big players, what it takes to get something like this going, and what is next for Flamingo Scooters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Vaka Interactiv CEO and co-founder Jesse Armstrong.This week’s Business is Boring podcast talks with an entrepreneur who is changing the way that stories, especially Māori and Pasifika stories, are told in museums, art and business. In a half hour chat with CEO Jesse Armstrong we hear about how they founded their company, Vaka Interactive, landed their idea for pictures that talk to you, got into Te Papa’s cultural idea accelerator and ended up making a piece of technology that would fit right into a Harry Potter movie.Their idea traces back to a visit to a museum, and a realisation they had, that although museums have come a long way in some ways, a lot of what goes on is still quite passive. There’ll be an exhibit and maybe a little bit of text to explain it. And the bits of text, to contextualise all these items with so many stories, are so often dry and lifeless. They thought, ‘Imagine if these things could tell you, really tell you, all their stories, and what if you could ask them questions?’ And then they found a way to make it happen.Vaka Interactiv create the technology and visual storytelling for talking pictures that you might find in museums, and other places or businesses with stories to tell. Their product looks like a normal photo, and then, Harry Potter like, they notice you watching and start telling you the story. There are first steps at being able to prompt them and ask questions, and the technology is being used by artists and museums to bring exhibits to life.The company call this technology Culture Lens, and it is the stories of Māori and Pasifika culture that the founders are particularly excited to capture and share. CEO and co-founder Jesse Armstrong joined the podcast to talk the journey through founding, their time at Mahuki, the Te Papa innovation accelerator, how the whole team moved to Wellington, how access to funding and support (thanks Callaghan Innovation) helped them create this mix of art and science, and the growth to today, including great advice for people wanting to make their own impact around capturing and sharing the stories that make this country special. Ka rawe! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices