June 4, 2025 • 42 mins
Wellington, once a vibrant hub for New Zealand’s tech innovation, has faced stagnation in recent years.
Last week, a packed audience at a Vision for Wellington event on Wellington’s waterfront heard from the city’s tech luminaries about how the city can embrace its strengths, particularly in technology, and foster a more supportive, connected ecosystem.
Sitting in the audience was Ralph Highnam, founder of breast screening software maker Volpara Health, which was started in Wellington in 2009 and, after listing on the ASX, was bought in 2024 by South Korean AI medical imaging company Lunit in a deal valued at around $300 million.
On this week's episode of The Business of Tech, Ralph outlines his own vision for Wellingtion and his plans for WellyForge, a new organisation started with the aim of breathing new life into the city's tech ecosystem.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This week on the Business of Tech powered by Two
Degrees Business, we're talking about the future of Wellington. I'm
Peter Griffin and this is a subject close to my
heart as I'm now in my twentieth year living right
in the center of the capitol. It's a wonderful place
to live and to be honest, I never expected to
say that as an orchander via Dublin, who came here
(00:26):
to study creative writing and expected to be on the
first plane north after finishing my degree. But I fell
in love with the place and with a woman living here,
and the rest is history. But the city has some
big problems now. Our infrastructure is dilapidated, economic growth is stagnant,
and the public sector cuts have seen a lot of
(00:48):
smart people leave in the last couple of years. Wellington
used to be the center of our tech sector, with
huge successes like zero and Trade. Me founded here. Believe
that doubling down on tech, on startups and innovation a
massively successful film industry is the way to attract top
(01:08):
talent to the city, inject more capital into our companies
and create more high paying jobs. We're not alone in
having that idea. A couple of weeks back, during Tech Week,
Auckland's Mayor Wayne Brown launched a new innovation and technology alliance,
bringing together the public and private sectors to attract capital
(01:31):
and boost productivity. He wants Auckland to be the Silicon
Valley of the South Pacific. A little bit cringy, but
let's face it, Auckland is the center of startup activity
now and has a lot going for it. As for
the capital, a lot of smart people have been thinking
about how to revive some of the glory associated with
the city's golden run of tech and entrepreneurial success in
(01:53):
the early two thousands into the twenty tens. Last week,
the think tank Vision for Wellington, up of prominent Walentonians
who want a new direction for the city, featured tech
luminaries on a panel discussion giving their suggestions for what
we should focus on. For instance, Rod Drury, who after
a huge success with Zero divides his time between Wellington
(02:16):
and Queenstown, suggested the city is the perfect place for
young people to get a start in their career and
we need to do a lot more to attract them here.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I think the idea around how he pets Wellington's what's.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
How unique about it. It's that great networking city early
in your working career. Sorry to you know kids discussion
twenty times for different things going on. But I think
what's called about an asset like don't need a car, So.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
If you're a young person in the twenties, you don't
have to waste time with the car, the car insurance
and parking cars, or you need really as.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
A laptop and somewhere to live.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So as a thing, I think we should have a
strategy of trying to attract people in their twenties, not
just people to go at a university, but people that
just want to come and have the big city experience
like I had coming from full State into some of
the floways cuts in the provinces.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Don't have to be super and to do the Uni track,
just come and live here. So how do you make
that easier? We have to make it affordable for them
to live.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That was Rod speaking at the Vision for Wellington event.
Also on the panel was Brooke Roberts, the co founder
and co CEO of Chaersease, which has become the go
to app for key We equity investors now. Brooke talked
about the city's proximity to nature and beaches being something
that we really have going for us, but also the
need for Wellington to invest more in the startups that
(03:37):
can produce wealth for the city.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
On top of that, you know what I love about
Wellingtons being able to run around the waterfront and the
hills being able to super dawn and then go to
they need to meetings and then fund bilance is quite
rare in willing to make it possible than is needing
more into growing. I can't be even attracted color to day.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
It's easy to live out here or purposely to raise.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Families and to recapital wall and face back to what
it was from what's possible and local standards for city can.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So the tone of the night was basically that we've
got a great compact city offering a fantastic lifestyle and
networking opportunities, but these networks have become disconnected, particularly in
the wake of COVID. To rebuild a vibrant tech sector,
we need to double down on those lifestyle factors the
city has going for it. We need to attract talent,
(04:37):
more investment and have better links between our universities and startups.
We also need leadership for the city with a clear
vision for the future. Sitting in the audience along with
me listening to that vision for Wellington panel was Ralph Heinem,
the co founder of Volpara Health, a startup that created
pioneering software for improving the accuracy of breast screening ma as.
(05:00):
The software is now used to screen literally tens of
millions of people worldwide, and last year, after a stint
on the Australian Stock Exchange, Volpara was acquired by South
Korean medical imaging software company Lunet in a deal value
at around three hundred million dollars, one of the biggest
exits from a Wellington company in the last twenty years. Ralph,
(05:23):
like me, came to Wellington and fell in love with
this place. He's now an active investor in startups in
the cety, including lit Maps, which I featured on the
podcast a few episodes ago. So I caught up with
Ralph on a sunny Wellington day at his Mount Victoria
home after the panel discussion to get his thoughts on
what he'd heard and his plans for wally Forge, a
(05:44):
new group he's formed that will act to promote events,
networking and investments for the Wellington startup scene. Here's the
interview with Volpara Health co founder Ralph Heinem. Ralph, Welcome
(06:09):
to the Business of Tech. Great to see you and
to have you on for the first time.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
Great to be here, Peter, I mean, I'm going to
enjoy the conversation. Let's crack into it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Well, there was a great conversation last night. You and
I attended this Vision for Wellington events. Some familiar and
iconic faces from the Wellington tech community, the likes of
Rod Drury, founder of Zero, Brooke Roberts, the co founder
of Chersey's Great Company, a lot of New Zealanders are using,
serge Van dam a serial investor in companies in Wellington,
(06:41):
and Stephen Cummings, the professor of Innovation and Strategy at
Victoria University. So it was a great panel. We're going
to get your thoughts on what they said last night
about the potential to use one of our strengths, which
is tech, to sort of reinvigorate the city, which, let's
face it has been in a bit of a funk
since COVID. But first I just want to remind listeners
(07:03):
off your success story coming to New Zealand after this
great academic career at Oxford and setting up Volpower Health,
which has been a huge success, grew to be listed
on the ASX. Has since been acquired by a South
Korean company, so a really successful exit there. Still based
in Wellington, still employing a lot of people here, dozens
(07:24):
of patents, so creating real intellectual property and helping women
all over the world with the AI powered screening software
that you've developed. So this is exactly the sort of
company as the people said last night, we need more
off and how do we do it? How do we
sort of ten x or one hundred times what's going
on here? But first just yeah, dial back to coming
(07:45):
out of Oxford University in the UK, what brought you
to New Zealand and the genesis of Volpower.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
Yeah, the APHD in Oxford on breast AI applied to
Paragrams for the textion early texts of breast cancer. Tried
to commercialize that in nineteen ninety nine but it was
a bit too early, but we switched into brain imaging
instead and we were very successful at that and we
ended up selling the companies to effectively to Siemens in
two thousand and three, at which point Mike Kiwi partner
(08:13):
who is now. My wife said, look, she had to
come back here from Oxford to finish off a medical
degree a targo. Would I come back with her? And
I said, well started the company. I was kind of
free and easy and never been to New Zealand. It
was like, yeah, all right, I'm on the way, let's
go to go to Wellington and interesting kind of flying in.
Obviously that was always exciting flying into Wellington, and it
(08:35):
was particularly on my first visit here. I was very
exciting and I thought, this is the kind of place
for me. It's got big exciting storms and lots of activity,
lots of energy and the lots of interesting things going on.
That was two thousand and three, Peter, and then they
consulted for some of the top medical emagine companies right
around the world. In two thousand and nine, I come
back and talked to the guy in Oxford, professor Mike Brady,
(08:56):
and we said, all stuff we did fifteen years ago,
now is the time for And we could have done
it anywhere in the world at that point, but I
or we chose to do it in Wellington, to start
vol Pier in Wellington. And we did it because quite
quite simply, it was just so easy starters where we
started to have Skype, which meant kind of global stuff
started to play in quite nicely, and we had fairly
(09:18):
good internet too. It felt so easy here to access
the government, access early stage funding. And then as we
started growing, we realized actually there's a huge number of
really good software engineers in Wellington. In medical space were
to breastcoats, you need really high quality people who really
can test the head out of software, you know, no
(09:39):
bugs or that kind of stuff, and there was lots
of those around Wellington. But that thing that we found
as well was as we started to get going was
there was there's a lot of people around here with
computer vision or AI skills because of the film industry.
So back then typically an American would come over and
work Wetter They would very conveniently bring a partner along
and that part and would often come and work at
(10:01):
bop A. So there was a really good relationship and
it was a fantastic base to which to start to
grow the company. People say, well, you kind of developed
the company and the biggest market was the US. Shouldn't
you have done it in the US? But I actually
feel that well, with the Internet now, you don't have
such issues of the tyranny of distance, but also being
(10:26):
outside the market just makes you think about things in
a different way, and I think vob Ai was just
very good at looking at things in different ways from here.
And the other thing which as I look back and
reflect on now, is that lots of companies came in
to our space in the US, funded by USBC, and
they were always trying tens and tens and tens of millions,
(10:47):
but it all burned out within one or two years.
Because medical and a lot of deep tech stuff, you
can't do it in one or two years. It's a
long term game and you need to have a sustainable
company and a sustainable workforce.
Speaker 7 (11:00):
So from day one at Volpira, it.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
Used to kind of drive me mad that people weren't
working twenty four hours a day. On the other hand,
I kind of realized it made all these people they
were here for the long run and they weren't going
to burn out. So that was a real kind of
a real benefit of bit of being in Wellington, as
well being the ability to do deep tech, to be
patient to grow stuff over the long term.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, and that theme really came through last night because
it's a small city, but the access to the green
belt here, to surfing at Lyle Bay and cycle tracks
and all that. You know, people are able to do
their work. You can get out into nature. But your
story is quite similar to some of the people on
(11:44):
the stage last night, Like Rod came from the Hawk's
Bay and he relates his story of coming to the
city for the first time and why it was such
a good place. You came here through circumstances. You know,
your partner was a Kiwi and came back to Wellington
to complete his studies. But you could have gone in
the last few years. Rod could have gone. Cheersy's is
very big. He is operating in Australia now, Brooke could
(12:06):
have could have gone. But you're all still here. So
it's something about this place, even that it's gone through
tough times in recent years, that keeps you here and investing.
You're an investor in lip Maps, Wellington based startup, So
what is it that keeps you here?
Speaker 6 (12:20):
Yeah, he's a great question. And you know you just
walked up around Mount Victoria, right. Yeah, we live in
such a stunningly beautiful place. You know, it's just stunning
weather and today and just stunningly beautiful. Along with that, though, yeah,
we do because because of that geography, we get big storms.
I actually love big storms, and I think Rod touched
on that last night. Someone touched on that last night.
(12:42):
It's very dramatic here when you get the big storms
coming through, and I actually loved I love being in
the office here or off downtown and the big storm
rolls through, bundles of rain against the window. You think
the windows are going to come in. It's all very
dramatic and exciting, but then it blows through and it's
just as stunning afterwards. So it's so I kind of
like all that. But the other thing that really came
(13:02):
over last night they used the word easy.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
I used the word simple.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
You know.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
I love it goes to the US or wherever you
come back, and you fly into the airport and it's
just so simple. Get out taxi, ten minutes to the
city center, walk up the road to the house.
Speaker 7 (13:18):
From the house here in malt Victoria, we're very lucky.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
We can walk ten minutes to the beach, five minutes
to the green Belt, fifteen minutes downtown to Cuba Street.
You know, it's just it's all simple and easy. Yeah,
it was a theme last night around cars. You know,
we very rarely drive cars unless we really have to.
And there's just that simplicity of life and stuff, I guess,
(13:42):
you know, along with the location, the storms and that
simplicity is a very outdoorsy place where where you know,
we love the outdoors that you talked about going up
on the green Belt. I used to, especially at Volpira,
get stressed or whatever, walk along the top of the
green Belt.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
You could see the whole world up there.
Speaker 6 (13:59):
There were raging storm and it would battery, but it
would inspire you at the same time.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
And you know, I kind of love that.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
And I think all those factors really helped to form
the people, right the people. You know, there's that you know,
we often talk about the people being the most important,
you know, to me, only you can't come from Looton
is a working class town, kind of deck down South,
And yeah, we all support Looton Town, which is the best,
best team, best football club in the world. But you know,
(14:26):
there's always these jokes about Manester United and everyone that
goes to watching has pron cocktail, sandwiches and drinks, caviar,
and you don't get any of that crap in Wellington.
You know, it's all kind of down to earth people.
Everyone's everyone's friendly, helping people and all that kind of stuff,
and everyone's up for a beer or a coffee and
(14:46):
it's just the people really make it at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, and two thousand and three, when when you got
here was really the start of this real nascent scene.
It started with trade me then you know, Rod was
working here on Glazier Systems and that the genesis of
Zero was more like two thousand and six, but you
had Over the Hill and Mirrima, you had really burgeoning
film scene happening with Sir Peter Jackson and Sir Richard Taylor.
(15:10):
So there was a lot going on that was twenty
plus years ago, and some of those people are still here.
But there's a sense that we've sort of lost what
was so great about the tech ecosystem. I mentioned COVID,
you know, and Rod talked last night about how the
towns sort of emptied out, particularly government, and it hasn't
quite come back. But what else explains that? What do
(15:31):
you think has happened so that we really don't have
that thriving tech ecosystem that we once did.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
I agree co Cove has been a big impact, but
also it feels like we've kind of lost some of
the coherence behind the scenes that could be related to
the government and the Council and their views on staff.
Both those entities seem to be breaking things apart rather
than trying to help us bring things together. And as
we talked about a bit earlier, it kind of feels
like this constant disruption willing to nound all we want
(15:59):
to do. Well, I want to do is get companies moving.
All I want to do is my breast cancer research
to go on and save more families from cancer. But
I'm stuck, you know, fighting this seven story tower block
at the end of the road which is never going
to be built, and it's just a waste of their time,
it's a waste of my time. But there's some ideological
thing happening. I think a government and council level. There's
(16:20):
just not letting people get home with stuff. And I
think we're Rod touched on that yesterday as well, right
up and with his dreams of more bike paths around
the place, especially up in the green Belt and things
like this.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, it's about sort of being really intentional and deliberate
about where you want the city to go. And as
we sit here, we're just looking out at what you
were saying about this plot of land behind you, which
is going to have this massive place at the end
of a private road in a very poky space.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
They want they want that.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, yeah, so they're being deliberate about de insification in
some areas, but it seems to be at the expense
of an economic vision for the city.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Yesterday was great because the vision for wanting to event
because there was kind of people were talking about economics
and you don't really hear that from the council and
certain things. Yeah, obviously COVID come along. But the other
thing that was very useful used to be very useful
was it used to be quite easy to kind of
get government funding early on, especially for SaaS companies, but
(17:16):
then the Labor government under Grant Robertson come in and
they changed it to this really complicated tax R and
D credit thing which only bigger companies could understand. So
Bobar actually ended up doing pretty well on that because
by that stage we were a bigger company. But in
my view, it really took away a lot of really
good funding for very early SaaS companies and waiting towards
(17:36):
a SAS central place. So yeah, you know it ended
up our MP in many ways championed this change to
the rule. In my view, that helped cripple some of
the kind of SaaS infrastructure that was going on. And
I'm not sure we ever recovered from that.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And then COVID and you know, objectively, the R and
D Texas sin of hasn't really achieved its aim was
still around one point four or one point five percent
of GDP spent on R and D. The whole idea
of this was to get more businesses investing in R
and D so that we would spend two or maybe
three percent of our GDP on R and E, which
(18:13):
is what other advanced small nations are doing. So it
hasn't really hit the mark, has it?
Speaker 7 (18:18):
No?
Speaker 6 (18:19):
As I say, and again it's good for big companies.
I remember we first did it. You need like ten
accountants and sixteen Deloitte people to work out what was
going on. Small companies can't afford that. And you know,
the thing, the way it was before, as a SaaS company,
you get some you get money up front, and that
would be such even if it's like fifty k or
(18:39):
sixty k. It would be so useful having that money
to help you go get ambitious and really go for growth.
And one of the things I think back on a lot,
and Brooke from shares his touch on this last night
was even though we'd already sold a company when I
come to Wellington started up Volpara, I always remember getting
ten k from I think it was grow Grow Wellington
(19:02):
at the point it was ten k to do some
capability buildings, have a quality system in the country to
start with.
Speaker 7 (19:08):
It was just a real nudge.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
It was like, you know, there is stuff around here,
there is people to support you. You know, it does
actually make sense to do it in Wellington. And so
and Brooke talked about it last night to early Stage
and you know, they went to Creative HQ and then
there was some nudge. They got some money and there
was this kind of nudge. And I really think that
(19:29):
one of the things that that SaaS funding used to
be that kind of nudge, that you know, supporting nudge,
and I think we've kind of lost that. And one
of the things I've been talking to a lot of
people about rebuilding the ecosystem, and that's what welly forged.
But also I really do believe we need early stage
nudge funding of zero to fifty k. You've got have
(19:50):
you've got a good idea, it convinced sort of whatever
it is, five or six people to put in ten k.
Let's get some nudge funding going in into those founders
who turn up. They might not be techie, you know,
they might not be rich, they might not be able
to go to their favorite or on call to get
the money. But you know there's a bunch of I
think there's enough people around Willington now that should be
(20:12):
able to come together and really do that kind of
true very early stage angel investing.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, and look there is angel HQ, which if you're
a wholesale investor you can put twenty five or fifty
k into something. There are a few opportunities like that,
but it really goes to the larger theme that Surge
van Dam was talking about. Here's actually a clip of
Surge talking about the constrained capital for high growth companies.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yes, so just on the capital a's long that we
have a shortage of capital and the wall so probably these.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
Themes about I've just written around numbers here, so doing
a quote media or a media personality one hundred billion
dollars and q WE saved over across a whole lot
of funds fifty billion and leans in two there or
fifty billion and probably speaking so well John billion dollars
on kiwi's money sitting there and managed, which two of
one percent of there is and great basics like what
(21:04):
we talk about here. So basically you've got one hundred
thousand bucks save for your retirement and aggregate two hundred
bucks of that is going to companies a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Of years these as an investor.
Speaker 8 (21:15):
So you're all of you who actually have KEYWI savers
or are actually saving through some other mechanism and have
influencing government, you can actually have your voice certain give
that feedback that you actually want.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
To participate in the future companies of New Zealands.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So so towards Yeah, it's basically saying, now, you know,
we have a lot of money in iq WE saver,
pension funds, all that sort of thing, but only a tiny,
tiny fraction of that is going into high growth companies.
There aren't really any mechanisms for local investment where people
might want to support investing in Wellington's startups. What do
you think we need to do to address this.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
I agree with Surged on that, and you know, I
can't understand where it's going on the key we saver staff.
I understand, you know, some of the other things again
mentioned we sit around waiting too much for the council
or for the government to come and rescue us.
Speaker 7 (22:04):
You know they're not coming.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
And the tech sector and you know, entrepreneurs around here,
we've got to get together and we've got to solve
this ourselves. Yeah, and I really believe it's kind of
it's time for wanting to people to put up the
hand to upcome this nudge fund for early investors to
get things moving. I'm certainly not going to wait around
for the government. You know that that could be a long, long, long,
long time.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
What was your capital journey like obviously you ended up listening,
so that was great, and you had mechanism there to
raise money, But in those intervening years, what was the
real first influx of funding that allowed you to do
what you needed to do with full power?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
Yeah, So if you go back to the first company
in Oxford, you know, we were very successful there. People
made where it was times ten the money and that
company started up on that very much was family and
friends money.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
Was it good?
Speaker 6 (22:55):
It's hugely stressful obviously because you know something your brother
or your sister and time you're seeing there like how's
my money going? And he's like wow, no, yeah, quite
a few more years. But you know they waited and
they got a really good return out of that.
Speaker 7 (23:11):
Then. Yeah, when I moved here.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
I started to company up with free professors then around
the world, and we went back to those early investors
in Oxford and said that we're going to do a company.
It's going to be Wellington, New Zealand.
Speaker 7 (23:26):
Are you in?
Speaker 6 (23:27):
And so yeah, the capital journey really was that those
first investors reinvesting into this kind of next company.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
And again I think Phil Royal.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
Touched on that last night though kind of the once
founders do one thing that they'll do it again.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And look at right and Atomic and I mean and
Sam Morgan, Row and Simpson, a lot of them at
Wellington based company. So it's really about people, isn't it.
If you weren't here in Wellington saying I want to
do Vulpower here, your supporters and all that would have
said okay, doing in Oxford.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
Yeah they were, but they supported us here and so
in the Endia we were very kind of grateful for that.
But then over time we got we found there was
a really wealthy guy over in Australia, Roger Allen, who
just loved the whole saving families from cancer color view
(24:21):
and he got heavily involved in it. And I always
remember Roger because one of the things he said, and
I think this is pertinent to a lot of New
Zealand investor, is his viewpoint always was that what you're
doing is really good for the world. So you know,
I have a choice. I could give money to charity,
I could put into companies see innovation, and you know,
(24:42):
potentially get some money back. I can recycle. So he'd
always tend towards companies which are doing good as his
form of.
Speaker 7 (24:52):
Whatever that word is. It has a hard one there.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
And Joe we talked a lot earlier about kind of
some of the numbers. But for Para, at least a
year ago we were at obviously we were castro, it
was castro positive and it was bringing in ten tens
of millions of revenue, but also forty percent of all
(25:17):
US breast cancer screens were being done using volpar our
software's Yeah, that is you know whatever. It was fifteen
sixteen million women each year getting the benefits of our software.
So yeah, that was you know, that was that was
incredible buzz. And going back to the start of opera,
so we had Oxford sort of investors come in. We
(25:42):
we had Roger Allen come in. But then as we
came towards ASX, Neil Craig and Craigs re supported us
so that they ended up raising five million for us
as a pre IPO round and that led to the AX.
And what do you remember that journey for various things.
What one is because we got investment in from ox
(26:02):
to start with. From the very start, we had to
communicate a lot with the investors. So every month the
all reports going out to all these people in the
UK who probably thought, well, someone probably thought my money's
going to New Zealand. I'll never see that again. But yeah,
they are getting these regular reports and that whole report
reporting really set us up for the AX because we
(26:26):
were very used to gear to.
Speaker 7 (26:30):
Reporting two people.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
So yeah, the capital journey for us was Craigs. We
never really took any VC money for here for various
reasons that there was one VC got very close to
putting in a substantial amount, but then there was a
there was a disaster one of there other companies, and
they're to throw money into that one.
Speaker 7 (26:51):
So I've all switched around. Yeah, very much.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
So yeah, look and there is there's more more money.
Robbie Paul from ICE has to Interest just day a
graph showing the participation of international vcs in their funding
rounds and it and the curve is just going up
and up and up. So the international players are looking
down here. They're scouting for talent. So that the capital
(27:16):
thing is it's not it's not perfect. What you've said
is the real early stage stuff. We need more of
that obviously, and.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
Then touched on that last night, the plant more seeds planted.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, we've talked about you you need a city that's
a great place to live. And we do have the wildlife.
We've talked about the landscape. The cultural heart of the
city is still still intact and people and Stephen Cummings
reflected on that last night, and you acknowledge that, you know,
the university hasn't particularly got this right to date, but
(27:50):
things are changing. There's a little incubator and shared working
space on the Pipotier campus, So we went in near
a couple of weeks ago to meet lit Maps who
are based there. So that's really coming along. Here's what
he said about what they need to get right and
do better to get that talent pipeline going for the industry.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I think, in fairness forcunity hasn't been the most receptive
university to.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Providing help for people from the community coming in. But
I think we're fixing that now and I think you
know that. The Tech Awards on Friday night was interesting
to me how many people thank the University of Autland
and thanks the Center for Innovations and Entrepreneurship with the
University of Auckland for the support that they have given them.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
What don't we have The University of Auckland had when
it's set up a sense for renovation and entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
They had local government support like we did, like we do,
They had university support.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Like we do, but they also had private and corporate
investors investing.
Speaker 7 (28:49):
In student entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
So that's my provocation, if you believe it's recorded, be
a mental outcome and support, but also think about maybe
what you could do to sort of scattered those manities
that the surge talked about.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
That's my propilication, gearing high for money.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
So Stephen Cummings is basically saying, yeah, there needs to
be a more collaboration, more cohesive way of fostering all
that entrepreneurial talent. What you've generally been like with Volpara
actually finding great talent from the Wellington area or attracting
people to this city.
Speaker 6 (29:26):
We really didn't have a huge amount of issues. Obviously
during COVID and stuff that there was, there was issues,
and you know, it comes like Vaultpire a lot of
the deep tech ones you get out of universities, you're
always trying to do good and you're on a mission.
So for volt Pier of saving fans from breast cancer
and that was always a very powerful poll for people.
(29:47):
So yeah, we used to get some outstanding engineers from
ron Wellington. We did bring in FDA skills from overseas.
Speaker 7 (29:56):
But again, you know a lot of these people, especially in.
Speaker 6 (29:59):
Today's year us, were keen to know, keen to try
try somewhere else and so that again that was relatively
easy to find those people and pull them down.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
And because Oxford and Cambridge are I mean, Cambridge is
one of the biggest innovation ecosystems in the world in
its own right. When you have a highly innovative, successful
university at the heart of it, the stuff that spins
off and the capital that attracts the talent from all
over the world, and we do. Yeah, we've got a
(30:30):
pretty good at university here in Victoria and mass as well,
plus all the Crown Research Institute, so we do have
quite a good sort of base of scientific expertise.
Speaker 6 (30:40):
No, absolutely no, there was a whole science city concept
which I'm actually a real believer in. The well Itto's
ability of science was amazed when you know, whenever you
go into the Hut for example, and you know, you're
always sitting down with someone random and they're telling you
their fifty year journey of understanding MRI or coils or.
Speaker 7 (31:01):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 6 (31:02):
And I do really believe that Wellington has got like
an outstanding science based around here, and I actually do
believe a lot of it is getting There's a certain
amount of wastage there, people getting laid off or retiring
when they should be continuing to contribute to Wellington and
to you know, to the overall new Zealand economy. One
(31:22):
of the things I did about a year or eighteen
months ago was started called something called Welly Breast Hub.
It's kind of using my experience in breast cancer try
and raise up the breast cancer research across the country.
It's kind of expanding now into Australia. It's about to
kind of go global as well. But I first felt well,
(31:43):
if I could do that, then you know, one of
the guys who won those MRI experts or experts on
coil could equally do a community like that to try
and raise the whole level up as well. And yeah,
the key to doing it is you want people. We
were very grounded. We've put people with a good mix
(32:03):
of academic and commercial kind of views on stuff. And
you have to use digital technology. So you know, bob
Pya becomes successful. Well, one of its big successes was
using a system called Yama at the heart and Bob
was very very science based and anything in the world
happened around breast cancer, whether it was detection, diagnosis, treatment
(32:26):
or whatever, we wanted to know about it. We wanted
to teach everyone in the company about it. So even
if you're an accountant or the salesperson, we would teach
you that science. The whole company kind of grew this
culture of science and understanding of breast cancer in all
its forms, and I really believe that that was one
of the big reasons. And I'd love to see some
(32:46):
of that kind of thinking and science city concepts kind
of come through. And the other thing Peter which touched
on it is Welly Forge as well, and part of
that is part of that is building on side city
and yeah where where things like it just really annoyed me.
Over the last couple of years. I'd hear about a
(33:07):
talk via some LinkedIn post and I'd turn up there
and it'd be fifteen people sitting in a room and
I'm like, if you circ, if you told people about this,
there'll be journalists here, there'd be students here, they'll be
public here, the agent invested here, they be you know,
be real movac and these guys would come along as
well and just start to hear your message and start
(33:29):
to kind of get your branding, you get your name known,
and start to kind of build up that kind of
base level of understanding. But there's a whole series of
these kind of talks and which i'd miss or I've
got to hear about secondhand somehow and go along with
it to be empty. And I'm like, these are great
networking events, these are great learning opportunities. These these are
(33:50):
kind of things where Wellington should be here learning, building, growing, networking,
getting inspired to actually go out there and do it themselves.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And we used to that around in two thousand and three,
and I remember going to some of those events and
they were humming, and there was a lot more shared
working spaces. There was more of a vibe around tech
in this in the city. We seem to have lost that.
What's the goal with Welly Forge? How are you going
to get involved in trying to foster that?
Speaker 6 (34:18):
Yeah, so again I'm always a big fan of using
using tech tech well, but I've always had you know,
I've used tech many times now. PI was built around
Yama Tech, right, and actually we're about to use Yama
I think Rod talked about it at some point. That's
sort of video we'll try that. I think they moved
(34:39):
away for it, but it was it was next.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Went through a period from about a decade yea. It
was massive. It wasn't as a tool for collaboration, and that.
Speaker 6 (34:45):
So it's always been a big fan of building communities
kind of digitally and welly Ford is going to be that. Yeah,
it's it's going to be an email list. But the
kind of the news that is going to cover all
the Wellington success stories. We don't celebrate success enough in Wellington.
You know, lip maps, buying research Rabbit. Let's just you know,
recap on that. So a small weddingtor company raises money,
(35:09):
hits a million dollars of URR and buys an American competitor.
Speaker 7 (35:14):
That's quite a unique story, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6 (35:16):
And I think you covered it. I don't remember the
Dominion Post covering it. Probably not all the story you
talked about earlier. VOPI got brought by South Korean company
last year and that's one of the biggest exits in Wellington.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Oh yeah, absolutely, it's three hundred million dollars for.
Speaker 7 (35:34):
A long long time. Yeah. So but you know, I
didn't see anything that don post about this.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
And that goes to what Stephen Cummings was saying. You know,
we celebrated our sports stars and that and this is
a common sort of complaint through New Zealand's recent history.
Are entrepreneurs and that don't really get much of a
look in so Peter Beck and that obviously rocket lab
or inspiring success, but yeah, there's just so many of
them really in this town. You don't really hear much about.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
Welly Ford is going to celebrate those successes and hopefully
journalists like yourself and others will go, oh, actually that's
an interesting story. I'll I'll write that up and yeah,
that'll inspire the next generation of people coming through.
Speaker 7 (36:15):
We're going to cover all the wedding. It's an event
in Wellington.
Speaker 6 (36:19):
Which is kind of science translational or tech tech translational.
You know, we want to want to know about it
and tell everyone and so and yeah, we're gonna start
to bring together the the whole ecosystem. So there's something
called the Wellington Startup Collective, for example, run by Brent's
by Sir Jimmy McGee and then Surge and a few
(36:40):
others and Trent as well. And again you know, not
a huge amount of people know that. So it's start
linking up this email news that we'll start mentioning the
angels that you mentioned earlier. We'll start mentioning this collective
and I'd love to build that up and then introduce
this early stage venture fund as part of it as well,
and then moving on and it was a topic last
(37:02):
night as well as that, you know, we really need
somewhere to interact, you know, in a casual way. So
Welly Forge is going to host an event Undercurrent on
the junior team and it's a great little venue and
it's all designed for talking.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, it's great underground on Tory Street in center Wellington.
Speaker 7 (37:23):
Yeah, it's just good.
Speaker 6 (37:24):
It's an excellent venue for kind of the atmosphere we
want to create. But you know, we need to start
creating that space where if I go and have a
coffee somewhere downtown and there's surgeries standing there and we
have a little chat or some of the other people
prefer me it's an incubator kind of more in the
center of town with open doors where there's much more
(37:46):
flow of people coming in and out and stuff, just
to get those casual interactions moving.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, and these are all things that you know, you
don't need the Council to give its approval to. I
mean there's a lot of things where I mean last
night that you can get off the ground. It's really
reclaiming our own destiny. And deciding what I said he
wants to be. And there was a lot of talk
about people getting more engaged in the democratic process. Actually
(38:12):
Rod said it should be compulsory to vote. So there's
a few interesting views on that. But there's the things
that you're doing with wellly forward and that, as Rod
and other said, it's very competitive and if you want
to attract the best talent and the capital, you've got
to roll out the mount and say this is what
we're good at.
Speaker 7 (38:32):
No.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
No, I loved you know, I cycle ever walk every
out and I'm grateful for some of those bike paths.
But you just can't force people to do stuff like that.
And you can't, you know, you have to take them
along the journey. So you can't have some ideological things
saying from now on, everyone's going to walk or cycle.
It doesn't work for the older generation, disable people, you know,
(38:55):
all that kind of group.
Speaker 7 (38:56):
It's just it's just not the right way doing it.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
Yes, you know, we heard that vision from Rodolph and
it just it was just beautiful term this, you know,
with the capital of urban adventure. To me, it really
resonated because it really touches on you know, adventure, extreme winds,
extreme rain, beautiful sunny days, biking, walking up the green Belt,
plus starts and being creative and the council and others.
(39:23):
You know, they talk about creativity and in their mind
that's all about arts and stuff. But you know, science
is incredibly creative, Tech is incredibly creative, and it's it's
when you start mixing all together you get magic happening. Yeah,
and that's kind of Welly Forward and other initiatives that
we need to get magic happening again.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, it's that sort of intersection, like like you were
saying that the people from the film industry who came
and worked at all para. That's a great thing about
about Wellington as you've got these you know, you've got science,
you've got tich, you've got the creative, you've got a
strong arts scene, and you've got just massive film in
this over there, so many entrepreneurs and startups cross over
(40:05):
those sectors.
Speaker 6 (40:06):
And then and because we're a small compact city, yeah,
you walk around, you bump into them, right.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
So I think we both came away by sounds of
feeling pretty inspired by what we heard last night. Do
you think it's going to translate into meaningful action. We've
got a mayoral election coming up, Andrew Little looks to
be the front runner, and that he's obviously former labor
MP left leaning. To what extent do we need? A
(40:33):
real leadership change and a vision change for the city.
Doesn't need to be led, but how important is it
to have a strong leader in the council who buys
into this vision. Playing to our traditional strengths like tech
absolutely critical.
Speaker 6 (40:46):
We need someone who is at the top who understands tech,
understands commerce, understand businesses, understands creativity and understands the kind
of the energy and stuff around Wellington that if we
can pull it together, and we do need rallying kind
of vision and love. We heard about being the capital
of urban adventure feels to me like that that is
(41:07):
a rallying vision because it does pull together some cycling,
but in a pragmatic kind of way, but it plays
to all our strengths and as talking to Americans and
talking to them about you know, we're the capital of
urban adventure and stuff, I think it will become a
very attractive place to come and interesting thing is right
you turn up and it kind of almost sets sex
(41:27):
affectations as well, it's kind of you don't turn up thinking,
oh it's going to be calm and mild and we're
going to drink a caveat and every day you come,
you know, this is the city of action. That's one
of the words down there on the waterfront. This is
the city of action. And we need to get back
to being the city of action. And we need that
rallying vision from the top. And I'm really hoping that
(41:49):
Andrew Little or Rachel or some of these people you
start to pull out this positive rallying cry that yeah,
we can do stuff. But also I mean, as were
ready forward and other things. Yeah, we can't wait for
the gard and we can't wait for the council to
do this. We have to do it ourselves.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
So thanks to Ralph for coming on and giving his perspective,
and I'll post a link to the full Vision for
Wellington panel audio in the show notes too. I recorded
it on my phone, so it's not great audio, but
it's worth a listen. There was some great stuff that
came out of that discussion. Thanks for tuning in. If
you're not subscribed, you can do so entirely for free
on iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast app next week. A
(42:39):
business coach who has written a book that cuts through
the AI hype to help figure out what you actually
need to do to integrate artificial intelligence into your business.
That episode's dropping next Thursday, and I'll catch you then
This week on the Business of Tech powered by Two
Degrees Business, we're talking about the future of Wellington. I'm
Peter Griffin and this is a subject close to my
heart as I'm now in my twentieth year living right
in the center of the capitol. It's a wonderful place
to live and to be honest, I never expected to
say that as an orchander via Dublin, who came here
(00:26):
to study creative writing and expected to be on the
first plane north after finishing my degree. But I fell
in love with the place and with a woman living here,
and the rest is history. But the city has some
big problems now. Our infrastructure is dilapidated, economic growth is stagnant,
and the public sector cuts have seen a lot of
(00:48):
smart people leave in the last couple of years. Wellington
used to be the center of our tech sector, with
huge successes like zero and Trade. Me founded here. Believe
that doubling down on tech, on startups and innovation a
massively successful film industry is the way to attract top
(01:08):
talent to the city, inject more capital into our companies
and create more high paying jobs. We're not alone in
having that idea. A couple of weeks back, during Tech Week,
Auckland's Mayor Wayne Brown launched a new innovation and technology alliance,
bringing together the public and private sectors to attract capital
(01:31):
and boost productivity. He wants Auckland to be the Silicon
Valley of the South Pacific. A little bit cringy, but
let's face it, Auckland is the center of startup activity
now and has a lot going for it. As for
the capital, a lot of smart people have been thinking
about how to revive some of the glory associated with
the city's golden run of tech and entrepreneurial success in
(01:53):
the early two thousands into the twenty tens. Last week,
the think tank Vision for Wellington, up of prominent Walentonians
who want a new direction for the city, featured tech
luminaries on a panel discussion giving their suggestions for what
we should focus on. For instance, Rod Drury, who after
a huge success with Zero divides his time between Wellington
(02:16):
and Queenstown, suggested the city is the perfect place for
young people to get a start in their career and
we need to do a lot more to attract them here.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I think the idea around how he pets Wellington's what's.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
How unique about it. It's that great networking city early
in your working career. Sorry to you know kids discussion
twenty times for different things going on. But I think
what's called about an asset like don't need a car, So.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
If you're a young person in the twenties, you don't
have to waste time with the car, the car insurance
and parking cars, or you need really as.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
A laptop and somewhere to live.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So as a thing, I think we should have a
strategy of trying to attract people in their twenties, not
just people to go at a university, but people that
just want to come and have the big city experience
like I had coming from full State into some of
the floways cuts in the provinces.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Don't have to be super and to do the Uni track,
just come and live here. So how do you make
that easier? We have to make it affordable for them
to live.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That was Rod speaking at the Vision for Wellington event.
Also on the panel was Brooke Roberts, the co founder
and co CEO of Chaersease, which has become the go
to app for key We equity investors now. Brooke talked
about the city's proximity to nature and beaches being something
that we really have going for us, but also the
need for Wellington to invest more in the startups that
(03:37):
can produce wealth for the city.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
On top of that, you know what I love about
Wellingtons being able to run around the waterfront and the
hills being able to super dawn and then go to
they need to meetings and then fund bilance is quite
rare in willing to make it possible than is needing
more into growing. I can't be even attracted color to day.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
It's easy to live out here or purposely to raise.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Families and to recapital wall and face back to what
it was from what's possible and local standards for city can.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So the tone of the night was basically that we've
got a great compact city offering a fantastic lifestyle and
networking opportunities, but these networks have become disconnected, particularly in
the wake of COVID. To rebuild a vibrant tech sector,
we need to double down on those lifestyle factors the
city has going for it. We need to attract talent,
(04:37):
more investment and have better links between our universities and startups.
We also need leadership for the city with a clear
vision for the future. Sitting in the audience along with
me listening to that vision for Wellington panel was Ralph Heinem,
the co founder of Volpara Health, a startup that created
pioneering software for improving the accuracy of breast screening ma as.
(05:00):
The software is now used to screen literally tens of
millions of people worldwide, and last year, after a stint
on the Australian Stock Exchange, Volpara was acquired by South
Korean medical imaging software company Lunet in a deal value
at around three hundred million dollars, one of the biggest
exits from a Wellington company in the last twenty years. Ralph,
(05:23):
like me, came to Wellington and fell in love with
this place. He's now an active investor in startups in
the cety, including lit Maps, which I featured on the
podcast a few episodes ago. So I caught up with
Ralph on a sunny Wellington day at his Mount Victoria
home after the panel discussion to get his thoughts on
what he'd heard and his plans for wally Forge, a
(05:44):
new group he's formed that will act to promote events,
networking and investments for the Wellington startup scene. Here's the
interview with Volpara Health co founder Ralph Heinem. Ralph, Welcome
(06:09):
to the Business of Tech. Great to see you and
to have you on for the first time.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
Great to be here, Peter, I mean, I'm going to
enjoy the conversation. Let's crack into it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Well, there was a great conversation last night. You and
I attended this Vision for Wellington events. Some familiar and
iconic faces from the Wellington tech community, the likes of
Rod Drury, founder of Zero, Brooke Roberts, the co founder
of Chersey's Great Company, a lot of New Zealanders are using,
serge Van dam a serial investor in companies in Wellington,
(06:41):
and Stephen Cummings, the professor of Innovation and Strategy at
Victoria University. So it was a great panel. We're going
to get your thoughts on what they said last night
about the potential to use one of our strengths, which
is tech, to sort of reinvigorate the city, which, let's
face it has been in a bit of a funk
since COVID. But first I just want to remind listeners
(07:03):
off your success story coming to New Zealand after this
great academic career at Oxford and setting up Volpower Health,
which has been a huge success, grew to be listed
on the ASX. Has since been acquired by a South
Korean company, so a really successful exit there. Still based
in Wellington, still employing a lot of people here, dozens
(07:24):
of patents, so creating real intellectual property and helping women
all over the world with the AI powered screening software
that you've developed. So this is exactly the sort of
company as the people said last night, we need more
off and how do we do it? How do we
sort of ten x or one hundred times what's going
on here? But first just yeah, dial back to coming
(07:45):
out of Oxford University in the UK, what brought you
to New Zealand and the genesis of Volpower.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
Yeah, the APHD in Oxford on breast AI applied to
Paragrams for the textion early texts of breast cancer. Tried
to commercialize that in nineteen ninety nine but it was
a bit too early, but we switched into brain imaging
instead and we were very successful at that and we
ended up selling the companies to effectively to Siemens in
two thousand and three, at which point Mike Kiwi partner
(08:13):
who is now. My wife said, look, she had to
come back here from Oxford to finish off a medical
degree a targo. Would I come back with her? And
I said, well started the company. I was kind of
free and easy and never been to New Zealand. It
was like, yeah, all right, I'm on the way, let's
go to go to Wellington and interesting kind of flying in.
Obviously that was always exciting flying into Wellington, and it
(08:35):
was particularly on my first visit here. I was very
exciting and I thought, this is the kind of place
for me. It's got big exciting storms and lots of activity,
lots of energy and the lots of interesting things going on.
That was two thousand and three, Peter, and then they
consulted for some of the top medical emagine companies right
around the world. In two thousand and nine, I come
back and talked to the guy in Oxford, professor Mike Brady,
(08:56):
and we said, all stuff we did fifteen years ago,
now is the time for And we could have done
it anywhere in the world at that point, but I
or we chose to do it in Wellington, to start
vol Pier in Wellington. And we did it because quite
quite simply, it was just so easy starters where we
started to have Skype, which meant kind of global stuff
started to play in quite nicely, and we had fairly
(09:18):
good internet too. It felt so easy here to access
the government, access early stage funding. And then as we
started growing, we realized actually there's a huge number of
really good software engineers in Wellington. In medical space were
to breastcoats, you need really high quality people who really
can test the head out of software, you know, no
(09:39):
bugs or that kind of stuff, and there was lots
of those around Wellington. But that thing that we found
as well was as we started to get going was
there was there's a lot of people around here with
computer vision or AI skills because of the film industry.
So back then typically an American would come over and
work Wetter They would very conveniently bring a partner along
and that part and would often come and work at
(10:01):
bop A. So there was a really good relationship and
it was a fantastic base to which to start to
grow the company. People say, well, you kind of developed
the company and the biggest market was the US. Shouldn't
you have done it in the US? But I actually
feel that well, with the Internet now, you don't have
such issues of the tyranny of distance, but also being
(10:26):
outside the market just makes you think about things in
a different way, and I think vob Ai was just
very good at looking at things in different ways from here.
And the other thing which as I look back and
reflect on now, is that lots of companies came in
to our space in the US, funded by USBC, and
they were always trying tens and tens and tens of millions,
(10:47):
but it all burned out within one or two years.
Because medical and a lot of deep tech stuff, you
can't do it in one or two years. It's a
long term game and you need to have a sustainable
company and a sustainable workforce.
Speaker 7 (11:00):
So from day one at Volpira, it.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
Used to kind of drive me mad that people weren't
working twenty four hours a day. On the other hand,
I kind of realized it made all these people they
were here for the long run and they weren't going
to burn out. So that was a real kind of
a real benefit of bit of being in Wellington, as
well being the ability to do deep tech, to be
patient to grow stuff over the long term.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, and that theme really came through last night because
it's a small city, but the access to the green
belt here, to surfing at Lyle Bay and cycle tracks
and all that. You know, people are able to do
their work. You can get out into nature. But your
story is quite similar to some of the people on
(11:44):
the stage last night, Like Rod came from the Hawk's
Bay and he relates his story of coming to the
city for the first time and why it was such
a good place. You came here through circumstances. You know,
your partner was a Kiwi and came back to Wellington
to complete his studies. But you could have gone in
the last few years. Rod could have gone. Cheersy's is
very big. He is operating in Australia now, Brooke could
(12:06):
have could have gone. But you're all still here. So
it's something about this place, even that it's gone through
tough times in recent years, that keeps you here and investing.
You're an investor in lip Maps, Wellington based startup, So
what is it that keeps you here?
Speaker 6 (12:20):
Yeah, he's a great question. And you know you just
walked up around Mount Victoria, right. Yeah, we live in
such a stunningly beautiful place. You know, it's just stunning
weather and today and just stunningly beautiful. Along with that, though, yeah,
we do because because of that geography, we get big storms.
I actually love big storms, and I think Rod touched
on that last night. Someone touched on that last night.
(12:42):
It's very dramatic here when you get the big storms
coming through, and I actually loved I love being in
the office here or off downtown and the big storm
rolls through, bundles of rain against the window. You think
the windows are going to come in. It's all very
dramatic and exciting, but then it blows through and it's
just as stunning afterwards. So it's so I kind of
like all that. But the other thing that really came
(13:02):
over last night they used the word easy.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
I used the word simple.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
You know.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
I love it goes to the US or wherever you
come back, and you fly into the airport and it's
just so simple. Get out taxi, ten minutes to the
city center, walk up the road to the house.
Speaker 7 (13:18):
From the house here in malt Victoria, we're very lucky.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
We can walk ten minutes to the beach, five minutes
to the green Belt, fifteen minutes downtown to Cuba Street.
You know, it's just it's all simple and easy. Yeah,
it was a theme last night around cars. You know,
we very rarely drive cars unless we really have to.
And there's just that simplicity of life and stuff, I guess,
(13:42):
you know, along with the location, the storms and that
simplicity is a very outdoorsy place where where you know,
we love the outdoors that you talked about going up
on the green Belt. I used to, especially at Volpira,
get stressed or whatever, walk along the top of the
green Belt.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
You could see the whole world up there.
Speaker 6 (13:59):
There were raging storm and it would battery, but it
would inspire you at the same time.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
And you know, I kind of love that.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
And I think all those factors really helped to form
the people, right the people. You know, there's that you know,
we often talk about the people being the most important,
you know, to me, only you can't come from Looton
is a working class town, kind of deck down South,
And yeah, we all support Looton Town, which is the best,
best team, best football club in the world. But you know,
(14:26):
there's always these jokes about Manester United and everyone that
goes to watching has pron cocktail, sandwiches and drinks, caviar,
and you don't get any of that crap in Wellington.
You know, it's all kind of down to earth people.
Everyone's everyone's friendly, helping people and all that kind of stuff,
and everyone's up for a beer or a coffee and
(14:46):
it's just the people really make it at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, and two thousand and three, when when you got
here was really the start of this real nascent scene.
It started with trade me then you know, Rod was
working here on Glazier Systems and that the genesis of
Zero was more like two thousand and six, but you
had Over the Hill and Mirrima, you had really burgeoning
film scene happening with Sir Peter Jackson and Sir Richard Taylor.
(15:10):
So there was a lot going on that was twenty
plus years ago, and some of those people are still here.
But there's a sense that we've sort of lost what
was so great about the tech ecosystem. I mentioned COVID,
you know, and Rod talked last night about how the
towns sort of emptied out, particularly government, and it hasn't
quite come back. But what else explains that? What do
(15:31):
you think has happened so that we really don't have
that thriving tech ecosystem that we once did.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
I agree co Cove has been a big impact, but
also it feels like we've kind of lost some of
the coherence behind the scenes that could be related to
the government and the Council and their views on staff.
Both those entities seem to be breaking things apart rather
than trying to help us bring things together. And as
we talked about a bit earlier, it kind of feels
like this constant disruption willing to nound all we want
(15:59):
to do. Well, I want to do is get companies moving.
All I want to do is my breast cancer research
to go on and save more families from cancer. But
I'm stuck, you know, fighting this seven story tower block
at the end of the road which is never going
to be built, and it's just a waste of their time,
it's a waste of my time. But there's some ideological
thing happening. I think a government and council level. There's
(16:20):
just not letting people get home with stuff. And I
think we're Rod touched on that yesterday as well, right
up and with his dreams of more bike paths around
the place, especially up in the green Belt and things
like this.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, it's about sort of being really intentional and deliberate
about where you want the city to go. And as
we sit here, we're just looking out at what you
were saying about this plot of land behind you, which
is going to have this massive place at the end
of a private road in a very poky space.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
They want they want that.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, yeah, so they're being deliberate about de insification in
some areas, but it seems to be at the expense
of an economic vision for the city.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Yesterday was great because the vision for wanting to event
because there was kind of people were talking about economics
and you don't really hear that from the council and
certain things. Yeah, obviously COVID come along. But the other
thing that was very useful used to be very useful
was it used to be quite easy to kind of
get government funding early on, especially for SaaS companies, but
(17:16):
then the Labor government under Grant Robertson come in and
they changed it to this really complicated tax R and
D credit thing which only bigger companies could understand. So
Bobar actually ended up doing pretty well on that because
by that stage we were a bigger company. But in
my view, it really took away a lot of really
good funding for very early SaaS companies and waiting towards
(17:36):
a SAS central place. So yeah, you know it ended
up our MP in many ways championed this change to
the rule. In my view, that helped cripple some of
the kind of SaaS infrastructure that was going on. And
I'm not sure we ever recovered from that.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And then COVID and you know, objectively, the R and
D Texas sin of hasn't really achieved its aim was
still around one point four or one point five percent
of GDP spent on R and D. The whole idea
of this was to get more businesses investing in R
and D so that we would spend two or maybe
three percent of our GDP on R and E, which
(18:13):
is what other advanced small nations are doing. So it
hasn't really hit the mark, has it?
Speaker 7 (18:18):
No?
Speaker 6 (18:19):
As I say, and again it's good for big companies.
I remember we first did it. You need like ten
accountants and sixteen Deloitte people to work out what was
going on. Small companies can't afford that. And you know,
the thing, the way it was before, as a SaaS company,
you get some you get money up front, and that
would be such even if it's like fifty k or
(18:39):
sixty k. It would be so useful having that money
to help you go get ambitious and really go for growth.
And one of the things I think back on a lot,
and Brooke from shares his touch on this last night
was even though we'd already sold a company when I
come to Wellington started up Volpara, I always remember getting
ten k from I think it was grow Grow Wellington
(19:02):
at the point it was ten k to do some
capability buildings, have a quality system in the country to
start with.
Speaker 7 (19:08):
It was just a real nudge.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
It was like, you know, there is stuff around here,
there is people to support you. You know, it does
actually make sense to do it in Wellington. And so
and Brooke talked about it last night to early Stage
and you know, they went to Creative HQ and then
there was some nudge. They got some money and there
was this kind of nudge. And I really think that
(19:29):
one of the things that that SaaS funding used to
be that kind of nudge, that you know, supporting nudge,
and I think we've kind of lost that. And one
of the things I've been talking to a lot of
people about rebuilding the ecosystem, and that's what welly forged.
But also I really do believe we need early stage
nudge funding of zero to fifty k. You've got have
(19:50):
you've got a good idea, it convinced sort of whatever
it is, five or six people to put in ten k.
Let's get some nudge funding going in into those founders
who turn up. They might not be techie, you know,
they might not be rich, they might not be able
to go to their favorite or on call to get
the money. But you know there's a bunch of I
think there's enough people around Willington now that should be
(20:12):
able to come together and really do that kind of
true very early stage angel investing.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, and look there is angel HQ, which if you're
a wholesale investor you can put twenty five or fifty
k into something. There are a few opportunities like that,
but it really goes to the larger theme that Surge
van Dam was talking about. Here's actually a clip of
Surge talking about the constrained capital for high growth companies.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yes, so just on the capital a's long that we
have a shortage of capital and the wall so probably these.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
Themes about I've just written around numbers here, so doing
a quote media or a media personality one hundred billion
dollars and q WE saved over across a whole lot
of funds fifty billion and leans in two there or
fifty billion and probably speaking so well John billion dollars
on kiwi's money sitting there and managed, which two of
one percent of there is and great basics like what
(21:04):
we talk about here. So basically you've got one hundred
thousand bucks save for your retirement and aggregate two hundred
bucks of that is going to companies a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Of years these as an investor.
Speaker 8 (21:15):
So you're all of you who actually have KEYWI savers
or are actually saving through some other mechanism and have
influencing government, you can actually have your voice certain give
that feedback that you actually want.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
To participate in the future companies of New Zealands.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So so towards Yeah, it's basically saying, now, you know,
we have a lot of money in iq WE saver,
pension funds, all that sort of thing, but only a tiny,
tiny fraction of that is going into high growth companies.
There aren't really any mechanisms for local investment where people
might want to support investing in Wellington's startups. What do
you think we need to do to address this.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
I agree with Surged on that, and you know, I
can't understand where it's going on the key we saver staff.
I understand, you know, some of the other things again
mentioned we sit around waiting too much for the council
or for the government to come and rescue us.
Speaker 7 (22:04):
You know they're not coming.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
And the tech sector and you know, entrepreneurs around here,
we've got to get together and we've got to solve
this ourselves. Yeah, and I really believe it's kind of
it's time for wanting to people to put up the
hand to upcome this nudge fund for early investors to
get things moving. I'm certainly not going to wait around
for the government. You know that that could be a long, long, long,
long time.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
What was your capital journey like obviously you ended up listening,
so that was great, and you had mechanism there to
raise money, But in those intervening years, what was the
real first influx of funding that allowed you to do
what you needed to do with full power?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
Yeah, So if you go back to the first company
in Oxford, you know, we were very successful there. People
made where it was times ten the money and that
company started up on that very much was family and
friends money.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
Was it good?
Speaker 6 (22:55):
It's hugely stressful obviously because you know something your brother
or your sister and time you're seeing there like how's
my money going? And he's like wow, no, yeah, quite
a few more years. But you know they waited and
they got a really good return out of that.
Speaker 7 (23:11):
Then. Yeah, when I moved here.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
I started to company up with free professors then around
the world, and we went back to those early investors
in Oxford and said that we're going to do a company.
It's going to be Wellington, New Zealand.
Speaker 7 (23:26):
Are you in?
Speaker 6 (23:27):
And so yeah, the capital journey really was that those
first investors reinvesting into this kind of next company.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
And again I think Phil Royal.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
Touched on that last night though kind of the once
founders do one thing that they'll do it again.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And look at right and Atomic and I mean and
Sam Morgan, Row and Simpson, a lot of them at
Wellington based company. So it's really about people, isn't it.
If you weren't here in Wellington saying I want to
do Vulpower here, your supporters and all that would have
said okay, doing in Oxford.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
Yeah they were, but they supported us here and so
in the Endia we were very kind of grateful for that.
But then over time we got we found there was
a really wealthy guy over in Australia, Roger Allen, who
just loved the whole saving families from cancer color view
(24:21):
and he got heavily involved in it. And I always
remember Roger because one of the things he said, and
I think this is pertinent to a lot of New
Zealand investor, is his viewpoint always was that what you're
doing is really good for the world. So you know,
I have a choice. I could give money to charity,
I could put into companies see innovation, and you know,
(24:42):
potentially get some money back. I can recycle. So he'd
always tend towards companies which are doing good as his
form of.
Speaker 7 (24:52):
Whatever that word is. It has a hard one there.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
And Joe we talked a lot earlier about kind of
some of the numbers. But for Para, at least a
year ago we were at obviously we were castro, it
was castro positive and it was bringing in ten tens
of millions of revenue, but also forty percent of all
(25:17):
US breast cancer screens were being done using volpar our
software's Yeah, that is you know whatever. It was fifteen
sixteen million women each year getting the benefits of our software.
So yeah, that was you know, that was that was
incredible buzz. And going back to the start of opera,
so we had Oxford sort of investors come in. We
(25:42):
we had Roger Allen come in. But then as we
came towards ASX, Neil Craig and Craigs re supported us
so that they ended up raising five million for us
as a pre IPO round and that led to the AX.
And what do you remember that journey for various things.
What one is because we got investment in from ox
(26:02):
to start with. From the very start, we had to
communicate a lot with the investors. So every month the
all reports going out to all these people in the
UK who probably thought, well, someone probably thought my money's
going to New Zealand. I'll never see that again. But yeah,
they are getting these regular reports and that whole report
reporting really set us up for the AX because we
(26:26):
were very used to gear to.
Speaker 7 (26:30):
Reporting two people.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
So yeah, the capital journey for us was Craigs. We
never really took any VC money for here for various
reasons that there was one VC got very close to
putting in a substantial amount, but then there was a
there was a disaster one of there other companies, and
they're to throw money into that one.
Speaker 7 (26:51):
So I've all switched around. Yeah, very much.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
So yeah, look and there is there's more more money.
Robbie Paul from ICE has to Interest just day a
graph showing the participation of international vcs in their funding
rounds and it and the curve is just going up
and up and up. So the international players are looking
down here. They're scouting for talent. So that the capital
(27:16):
thing is it's not it's not perfect. What you've said
is the real early stage stuff. We need more of
that obviously, and.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
Then touched on that last night, the plant more seeds planted.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, we've talked about you you need a city that's
a great place to live. And we do have the wildlife.
We've talked about the landscape. The cultural heart of the
city is still still intact and people and Stephen Cummings
reflected on that last night, and you acknowledge that, you know,
the university hasn't particularly got this right to date, but
(27:50):
things are changing. There's a little incubator and shared working
space on the Pipotier campus, So we went in near
a couple of weeks ago to meet lit Maps who
are based there. So that's really coming along. Here's what
he said about what they need to get right and
do better to get that talent pipeline going for the industry.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I think, in fairness forcunity hasn't been the most receptive
university to.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Providing help for people from the community coming in. But
I think we're fixing that now and I think you
know that. The Tech Awards on Friday night was interesting
to me how many people thank the University of Autland
and thanks the Center for Innovations and Entrepreneurship with the
University of Auckland for the support that they have given them.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
What don't we have The University of Auckland had when
it's set up a sense for renovation and entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
They had local government support like we did, like we do,
They had university support.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Like we do, but they also had private and corporate
investors investing.
Speaker 7 (28:49):
In student entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
So that's my provocation, if you believe it's recorded, be
a mental outcome and support, but also think about maybe
what you could do to sort of scattered those manities
that the surge talked about.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
That's my propilication, gearing high for money.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
So Stephen Cummings is basically saying, yeah, there needs to
be a more collaboration, more cohesive way of fostering all
that entrepreneurial talent. What you've generally been like with Volpara
actually finding great talent from the Wellington area or attracting
people to this city.
Speaker 6 (29:26):
We really didn't have a huge amount of issues. Obviously
during COVID and stuff that there was, there was issues,
and you know, it comes like Vaultpire a lot of
the deep tech ones you get out of universities, you're
always trying to do good and you're on a mission.
So for volt Pier of saving fans from breast cancer
and that was always a very powerful poll for people.
(29:47):
So yeah, we used to get some outstanding engineers from
ron Wellington. We did bring in FDA skills from overseas.
Speaker 7 (29:56):
But again, you know a lot of these people, especially in.
Speaker 6 (29:59):
Today's year us, were keen to know, keen to try
try somewhere else and so that again that was relatively
easy to find those people and pull them down.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
And because Oxford and Cambridge are I mean, Cambridge is
one of the biggest innovation ecosystems in the world in
its own right. When you have a highly innovative, successful
university at the heart of it, the stuff that spins
off and the capital that attracts the talent from all
over the world, and we do. Yeah, we've got a
(30:30):
pretty good at university here in Victoria and mass as well,
plus all the Crown Research Institute, so we do have
quite a good sort of base of scientific expertise.
Speaker 6 (30:40):
No, absolutely no, there was a whole science city concept
which I'm actually a real believer in. The well Itto's
ability of science was amazed when you know, whenever you
go into the Hut for example, and you know, you're
always sitting down with someone random and they're telling you
their fifty year journey of understanding MRI or coils or.
Speaker 7 (31:01):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 6 (31:02):
And I do really believe that Wellington has got like
an outstanding science based around here, and I actually do
believe a lot of it is getting There's a certain
amount of wastage there, people getting laid off or retiring
when they should be continuing to contribute to Wellington and
to you know, to the overall new Zealand economy. One
(31:22):
of the things I did about a year or eighteen
months ago was started called something called Welly Breast Hub.
It's kind of using my experience in breast cancer try
and raise up the breast cancer research across the country.
It's kind of expanding now into Australia. It's about to
kind of go global as well. But I first felt well,
(31:43):
if I could do that, then you know, one of
the guys who won those MRI experts or experts on
coil could equally do a community like that to try
and raise the whole level up as well. And yeah,
the key to doing it is you want people. We
were very grounded. We've put people with a good mix
(32:03):
of academic and commercial kind of views on stuff. And
you have to use digital technology. So you know, bob
Pya becomes successful. Well, one of its big successes was
using a system called Yama at the heart and Bob
was very very science based and anything in the world
happened around breast cancer, whether it was detection, diagnosis, treatment
(32:26):
or whatever, we wanted to know about it. We wanted
to teach everyone in the company about it. So even
if you're an accountant or the salesperson, we would teach
you that science. The whole company kind of grew this
culture of science and understanding of breast cancer in all
its forms, and I really believe that that was one
of the big reasons. And I'd love to see some
(32:46):
of that kind of thinking and science city concepts kind
of come through. And the other thing Peter which touched
on it is Welly Forge as well, and part of
that is part of that is building on side city
and yeah where where things like it just really annoyed me.
Over the last couple of years. I'd hear about a
(33:07):
talk via some LinkedIn post and I'd turn up there
and it'd be fifteen people sitting in a room and
I'm like, if you circ, if you told people about this,
there'll be journalists here, there'd be students here, they'll be
public here, the agent invested here, they be you know,
be real movac and these guys would come along as
well and just start to hear your message and start
(33:29):
to kind of get your branding, you get your name known,
and start to kind of build up that kind of
base level of understanding. But there's a whole series of
these kind of talks and which i'd miss or I've
got to hear about secondhand somehow and go along with
it to be empty. And I'm like, these are great
networking events, these are great learning opportunities. These these are
(33:50):
kind of things where Wellington should be here learning, building, growing, networking,
getting inspired to actually go out there and do it themselves.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And we used to that around in two thousand and three,
and I remember going to some of those events and
they were humming, and there was a lot more shared
working spaces. There was more of a vibe around tech
in this in the city. We seem to have lost that.
What's the goal with Welly Forge? How are you going
to get involved in trying to foster that?
Speaker 6 (34:18):
Yeah, so again I'm always a big fan of using
using tech tech well, but I've always had you know,
I've used tech many times now. PI was built around
Yama Tech, right, and actually we're about to use Yama
I think Rod talked about it at some point. That's
sort of video we'll try that. I think they moved
(34:39):
away for it, but it was it was next.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Went through a period from about a decade yea. It
was massive. It wasn't as a tool for collaboration, and that.
Speaker 6 (34:45):
So it's always been a big fan of building communities
kind of digitally and welly Ford is going to be that. Yeah,
it's it's going to be an email list. But the
kind of the news that is going to cover all
the Wellington success stories. We don't celebrate success enough in Wellington.
You know, lip maps, buying research Rabbit. Let's just you know,
recap on that. So a small weddingtor company raises money,
(35:09):
hits a million dollars of URR and buys an American competitor.
Speaker 7 (35:14):
That's quite a unique story, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6 (35:16):
And I think you covered it. I don't remember the
Dominion Post covering it. Probably not all the story you
talked about earlier. VOPI got brought by South Korean company
last year and that's one of the biggest exits in Wellington.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Oh yeah, absolutely, it's three hundred million dollars for.
Speaker 7 (35:34):
A long long time. Yeah. So but you know, I
didn't see anything that don post about this.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
And that goes to what Stephen Cummings was saying. You know,
we celebrated our sports stars and that and this is
a common sort of complaint through New Zealand's recent history.
Are entrepreneurs and that don't really get much of a
look in so Peter Beck and that obviously rocket lab
or inspiring success, but yeah, there's just so many of
them really in this town. You don't really hear much about.
Speaker 6 (36:02):
Welly Ford is going to celebrate those successes and hopefully
journalists like yourself and others will go, oh, actually that's
an interesting story. I'll I'll write that up and yeah,
that'll inspire the next generation of people coming through.
Speaker 7 (36:15):
We're going to cover all the wedding. It's an event
in Wellington.
Speaker 6 (36:19):
Which is kind of science translational or tech tech translational.
You know, we want to want to know about it
and tell everyone and so and yeah, we're gonna start
to bring together the the whole ecosystem. So there's something
called the Wellington Startup Collective, for example, run by Brent's
by Sir Jimmy McGee and then Surge and a few
(36:40):
others and Trent as well. And again you know, not
a huge amount of people know that. So it's start
linking up this email news that we'll start mentioning the
angels that you mentioned earlier. We'll start mentioning this collective
and I'd love to build that up and then introduce
this early stage venture fund as part of it as well,
and then moving on and it was a topic last
(37:02):
night as well as that, you know, we really need
somewhere to interact, you know, in a casual way. So
Welly Forge is going to host an event Undercurrent on
the junior team and it's a great little venue and
it's all designed for talking.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, it's great underground on Tory Street in center Wellington.
Speaker 7 (37:23):
Yeah, it's just good.
Speaker 6 (37:24):
It's an excellent venue for kind of the atmosphere we
want to create. But you know, we need to start
creating that space where if I go and have a
coffee somewhere downtown and there's surgeries standing there and we
have a little chat or some of the other people
prefer me it's an incubator kind of more in the
center of town with open doors where there's much more
(37:46):
flow of people coming in and out and stuff, just
to get those casual interactions moving.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, and these are all things that you know, you
don't need the Council to give its approval to. I
mean there's a lot of things where I mean last
night that you can get off the ground. It's really
reclaiming our own destiny. And deciding what I said he
wants to be. And there was a lot of talk
about people getting more engaged in the democratic process. Actually
(38:12):
Rod said it should be compulsory to vote. So there's
a few interesting views on that. But there's the things
that you're doing with wellly forward and that, as Rod
and other said, it's very competitive and if you want
to attract the best talent and the capital, you've got
to roll out the mount and say this is what
we're good at.
Speaker 7 (38:32):
No.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
No, I loved you know, I cycle ever walk every
out and I'm grateful for some of those bike paths.
But you just can't force people to do stuff like that.
And you can't, you know, you have to take them
along the journey. So you can't have some ideological things
saying from now on, everyone's going to walk or cycle.
It doesn't work for the older generation, disable people, you know,
(38:55):
all that kind of group.
Speaker 7 (38:56):
It's just it's just not the right way doing it.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
Yes, you know, we heard that vision from Rodolph and
it just it was just beautiful term this, you know,
with the capital of urban adventure. To me, it really
resonated because it really touches on you know, adventure, extreme winds,
extreme rain, beautiful sunny days, biking, walking up the green Belt,
plus starts and being creative and the council and others.
(39:23):
You know, they talk about creativity and in their mind
that's all about arts and stuff. But you know, science
is incredibly creative, Tech is incredibly creative, and it's it's
when you start mixing all together you get magic happening. Yeah,
and that's kind of Welly Forward and other initiatives that
we need to get magic happening again.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, it's that sort of intersection, like like you were
saying that the people from the film industry who came
and worked at all para. That's a great thing about
about Wellington as you've got these you know, you've got science,
you've got tich, you've got the creative, you've got a
strong arts scene, and you've got just massive film in
this over there, so many entrepreneurs and startups cross over
(40:05):
those sectors.
Speaker 6 (40:06):
And then and because we're a small compact city, yeah,
you walk around, you bump into them, right.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
So I think we both came away by sounds of
feeling pretty inspired by what we heard last night. Do
you think it's going to translate into meaningful action. We've
got a mayoral election coming up, Andrew Little looks to
be the front runner, and that he's obviously former labor
MP left leaning. To what extent do we need? A
(40:33):
real leadership change and a vision change for the city.
Doesn't need to be led, but how important is it
to have a strong leader in the council who buys
into this vision. Playing to our traditional strengths like tech
absolutely critical.
Speaker 6 (40:46):
We need someone who is at the top who understands tech,
understands commerce, understand businesses, understands creativity and understands the kind
of the energy and stuff around Wellington that if we
can pull it together, and we do need rallying kind
of vision and love. We heard about being the capital
of urban adventure feels to me like that that is
(41:07):
a rallying vision because it does pull together some cycling,
but in a pragmatic kind of way, but it plays
to all our strengths and as talking to Americans and
talking to them about you know, we're the capital of
urban adventure and stuff, I think it will become a
very attractive place to come and interesting thing is right
you turn up and it kind of almost sets sex
(41:27):
affectations as well, it's kind of you don't turn up thinking,
oh it's going to be calm and mild and we're
going to drink a caveat and every day you come,
you know, this is the city of action. That's one
of the words down there on the waterfront. This is
the city of action. And we need to get back
to being the city of action. And we need that
rallying vision from the top. And I'm really hoping that
(41:49):
Andrew Little or Rachel or some of these people you
start to pull out this positive rallying cry that yeah,
we can do stuff. But also I mean, as were
ready forward and other things. Yeah, we can't wait for
the gard and we can't wait for the council to
do this. We have to do it ourselves.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
So thanks to Ralph for coming on and giving his perspective,
and I'll post a link to the full Vision for
Wellington panel audio in the show notes too. I recorded
it on my phone, so it's not great audio, but
it's worth a listen. There was some great stuff that
came out of that discussion. Thanks for tuning in. If
you're not subscribed, you can do so entirely for free
on iHeartRadio or your favorite podcast app next week. A
(42:39):
business coach who has written a book that cuts through
the AI hype to help figure out what you actually
need to do to integrate artificial intelligence into your business.
That episode's dropping next Thursday, and I'll catch you then
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