Promote Auckland as an innovation capital, says expert

Peter Lee. Photo / Supplied

When it comes to the global technology supply chain, New Zealand needs to understand where it best fits in, says Peter Lee, chief executive of UniServices, the commercialisation arm of the University of Auckland.

He says this country excels at knowledge-based innovation, which can be worth a lot of money even before it is developed into a finished product.

Research and development, Lee reckons, can be a lucrative business in its own right. "People don't understand intrinsically in New Zealand that in a knowledge economy [corporations] will pay for intellectual property," he said.

"We're used to sacks of milk powder, carcasses of meat, logs - a product for us is a physical thing. But a product in a knowledge economy is not a physical thing, it's a piece of intellectual property and if you find the right buyer they will pay for it."

Lee said that for New Zealand intellectual property to be turned into world-leading products, partnerships often had to be forged with major international companies. "You have to couple this innovative capability with world distribution, scale and that global savvy that exists offshore," he said.

UniServices uses the technological know-how of the University of Auckland to offer contract research services for companies, and has worked with major multi-nationals including consumer products giants Procter & Gamble and Unilever, as well as German engineering conglomerate Siemens and Japanese material handling equipment maker Daifuku.

It receives no funding from either the Government or university, and invests its annual surplus (a net $5 million last year, on revenue of $125 million) back into new research projects.

The organisation also develops its own intellectual property and spawns start-up companies.

One firm to emerge out of UniServices is HaloIPT, which is developing wireless technology for charging electric cars.

Lee said HaloIPT was a good example of how partnering New Zealand know-how with global corporations was the way to go.

Almost every major automotive manufacturer in the world was trialling the technology, which uses magnetic resonance to transfer electricity from a transmitting pad on the ground to a receiving pad on an electric car - removing the need for the owner to plug the vehicle into a power source, he said.

Lee, a New Zealander who spent almost 30 years working in the United States, much of that as vice-president of research and development for corporate giant International Paper, said Auckland should promote itself as the innovation capital of the Pacific Rim.