Auckland isn’t the only New Zealand city with technology ambitions, but Brindley points out the city represents 50 per cent of the nation’s tech industry and that puts it at the fore. “We are the largest tech city in New Zealand; we must be proud of that. Sixty per cent of the top 200 technology companies are based here. If we grow the sector in Auckland, we grow it for all New Zealand.”
Tech Tāmaki Makaurau holds a trump card when it comes to the international stage. “We are unique. Auckland hosts 180 different ethnicities. We have an opportunity to build the world’s most diverse tech industry.
“This is amazing for innovation. Innovation doesn’t go for just one demographic. It’s for everyone. Whether it’s from age, ethnicity, gender bias; we need diversity.
“The other thing we have here is real future thinking. We have people working here on some of the world’s most pressing problems. We have the ability to tackle environmental, economic and social challenges.”
Brindley says the first year of the programme started with a focus on talent.
“We worked with the Spark Foundation to do a piece of research called Te Au Hangarau. It looked at those factors that influence participation and success of Māori in tech.
“For a long time, we’ve known that Māori and Pasifika participation in the sector has been low. In Auckland, just under 5 per cent of the tech workforce is Māori, about 7 per cent is Pasifika and around 27 per cent are women. We wanted to understand why that was so low.
“If we start by looking at pipeline coming in, we know that there are historic issues with the education sector where for a long time Māori were led towards blue-collar careers. We’re still in the early stages of changing that approach.
“There’s still a lot of work to do, but the main problem we have is the tech industry isn’t ready.
“We’re not seeing culturally literate leadership. There isn’t a sense of belonging. We’re not seeing mentoring. We’re not seeing networks of support for opportunity. If you do get someone into the industry, you could lose them.
“We’re using the research to identify the key causes. Now we’re ready to break down the actions we can take to make the tech industry more welcoming and create the sense of belonging.”
Brindley says some large organisations are good at this. They look at the whole employment journey from advertising jobs, through onboarding, promoting and retaining that talent. Now the task is to take that experience and use it to help smaller tech firms who may not have the in-house capacity to understand how to move forward.
Another piece of work in the programme’s first year was a marketing campaign aimed at attracting overseas talent to the city. “We used the voices of recent migrants to tell their story of why they moved here and what the local tech industry is like. “We talked to some of the great tech firms we’ve got here and then we reached out to the markets where the majority of our visa applications are coming from. Then we worked with Immigration New Zealand to generate interest”.
The next job is to take that interest and convert it into visa applications. Brindley says: “We’ve heard from migrants that they need networks here. They leave their family and come to a new country as pioneers. It can be hard for tech migrants to navigate the system and find a community of like-minded migrants. We can help point them in the direction.” There are 500 people in the Auckland Migrants in Tech community which holds regular informal events for newcomers.
Tech Tāmaki Makaurau has identified emerging sectors within Auckland’s wider tech industry for deeper attention. “We’re interested in growing aerospace, clean tech and medical tech. They are key areas where we have an opportunity. They are going to create great jobs.
We established Aerospace Auckland about a year ago. There is a cluster here, it’s nascent with about 100 companies doing everything from building rockets to advanced manufacturing and providing services. People like to know there is a cluster here and that if you come to work and live in Auckland; you’re not going to be the only one in the industry.”
Auckland Unlimited learned much from Grid AKL, established a decade ago as a short-term pilot innovation precinct in the heart of the Wynyard Quarter.
“It gave us the confidence to build on. Today, Grid AKL is home to around 150 innovation-focused businesses and around 1100 people. They are connected with the tech companies located nearby including Datacom, Microsoft, Google and other big names. We have everything ranging from early-stage start-ups right through to the world’s largest corporations and investors; that’s what you need for innovation.”
