I was invited to Auckland last week to The Project: Digital Disruption to discuss what’s happening in the Wellington startup scene. Here are my slides: Wellington, New Zealand’s Startup Capital Key points: Wellington’s key advantage is its scale. Everything is accessible within a 20 minute walk – but you need to plan for 30 minutes…
Continue reading →Do you have strong feelings about government surveillance? Ever since the release of information about government surveillance by Edward Snowden, I feel that the nature of the relationship of trust between governments and their citizens has changed. It’s thrown into sharp relief the uneasy balance between citizens’ right to privacy, and governments’ obligations to provide…
Continue reading →An introduction to the startup ecosystem in New Zealand and particularly Wellington. I was invited recently to attend a workshop organised by Brian Monahan, Matthew Monahan, and Yoseph Ayele who have recently decided to come to New Zealand and help turbo-charge our local startup scene. The purpose of the workshop was to help strengthen ties…
Continue reading →I was recently interviewed by Sarah Spear at The Parentalist, a new blog featuring parents who are “making an impact on the world, in business and in their local communities”. You listen to (or download) the audio: Or watch the video: On a related note, today I added the job “Parent at My Family” to…
Continue reading →Unlimited Magazine has named me one of “The 2013 Influencers” for my role as a “startup guru” helping companies get going right from the idea stage. It’s a nice little article, and I’m grateful to those who thought highly enough of my advice to recommend me to Unlimited. I’ve also snagged a PDF for…
Continue reading →Speech to Islam Awareness Week Launch, 26 August 2013 at Whare Waka, Wellington Shalom aleikhem, Salaam aleikum, Kia ora tatau. On the tenth anniversary of Islam Awareness Week, we can say that we have spent significant time together. Not only are we more aware of each other, we are friends that know, like, trust, and…
Continue reading →I recently contributed to a submission on the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill, a rather rushed and ill-considered piece of legislation that has massive potential for abuse by future governments, and which places unreasonable costs and procedures on people providing Internet services. The introduction reads: We explain in this Select Committee submission our opposition…
Continue reading →People regularly approach me or one of my investment entities asking for a meeting to discuss their venture and possible investment. If I know them, they’ve been referred to me by someone I trust, or they have an amazing LinkedIn profile I usually take the meeting. If they’ve crafted a great short pitch or include…
Continue reading →Publons is a Wellington-based startup that provides academic peer review as a service, with the ultimate goal of speeding up science. They graduated from the Lightning Lab accelerator programme [see my post on why Lightning Lab is so cool], and I recently took up position as lead investor in their angel round. Here’s their pitch…
Continue reading →Dame Susan Devoy was recently appointed Race Relations Commissioner, amidst some controversy. Like many, I was surprised by the appointment – I’d expected someone to be appointed to the position had some experience in the field, and was known to practitioners. It’s a done deal now – the appointment has been made, and I think…
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