By ELLEN READ
Business, education and civic leaders will meet over the next few weeks to discuss how to turn the vision of Innovation Harbour into a reality.
Innovation Harbour - the brainchild of Competitive Auckland - is a concept for clustering biotechnology, IT, marine industries and tourism at the water's edge.
The idea has attracted widespread support, but no practical details have been revealed.
Competitive Auckland board member and technology investor Keith Phillips said that last week's Competitive Auckland forum gave an overwhelming thumbs-up to the Innovation Harbour idea, and the process of planning the practical side of the vision was next on the agenda.
He and Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall have taken up the challenge of steering that process and convening the initial meeting on July 18.
"I think there were actually quite a few practical ideas that have been generated during the process of developing the concept as well as a result of the forum too," Mr Phillips said.
"It's really just a little too premature to be talking about them as they've got to be sifted through and have a plan and a strategy developed."
Innovation Harbour would be realised through leadership and the development of two major funds. "One is the venture capital funds, which would be a fund of funds - in other words, the first to integrate the other venture capitals together into a cohesive idea.
"And there also probably needs to be a development fund or development organisation," he said. "These are lofty, high-level ideas that I think are absolutely right but need to be worked through for their practicality."
The project also needed to involve the Government on issues such as attracting and retaining skilled workers and tax regimes for attracting multinationals, Mr Phillips said.
"We're at the creative stage at the moment, where any idea is a good one, before we hone down what the right solutions actually are. It's the industry and the mayors and so on that are going to make those decisions."
Mr Tindall has said he is 100 per cent behind the concept and would do everything he could to ensure it happened.
Innovation Harbour gains momentum as talks begin
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