By ELLEN READ
California has Silicon Valley, Scotland has Silicon Glen, but closer to home, plans were launched last night to create an Auckland version - Innovation Harbour.
Innovation Harbour - the brainchild of the Competitive Auckland team - is a concept for clustering biotechnology, IT, marine industries and tourism around the water's edge.
They could be networked by a water transport system to provide one of the best working environments for technology innovators, Competitive Auckland said.
Competitive Auckland is a business-led team formed to enhance Auckland's international competitiveness as a business location.
The group's proposed strategy on how to achieve this, released last week and discussed at last night's forum, identifies six industries as the hottest prospects to underpin the region's future growth: tourism, marine, information technology and communications, food and beverage, biotechnology, and education.
The concept of Innovation Harbour is a starting point for the practical implementation of the group's research so far.
"This work gets us to the start line. It's the beginning not the end," Competitive Auckland executive director Hilary Poole said of the team's work so far.
Asked why the climate is felt to be right to propel Auckland into the international fast lane, she said: "This is like our second chance, people are ready for this. It's our turn and people really feel the need for the country to achieve."
Competitive Auckland board member and technology investor Keith Phillips says Auckland is good at innovation and the harbour is a wonderful natural resource, so it makes sense to combine the two in an effort to promote the region.
"[Our innovation success] has a lot to do with distance from the world so we have a fresh view and it's to do with the village nature of the place," Mr Phillips said.
"We need to use that as a fundamental strength that we've got because the multinationals can't afford not to be where there is innovation.
"And we also need to leverage our environment, this wonderful environment that we know is a winner.
"So we're taking the innovation word and combining that with the harbour and really saying that we need to pull our innovation down from the back part of the town, isolated little pockets of endeavour, and cluster them around the waterfront to get that energy," Mr Phillips said.
Though last night's forum was aimed at garnering support for the vision, some has been forthcoming already.
Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall, who has invested in many innovation companies around New Zealand, is firmly behind Innovation Harbour, saying it is an "an idea whose time has come."
"We believe that we are a country with a No 8 fencing wire mentality that creates wonderful inventions. What we haven't been able to do," he said, "is take these to the world and what a perfect opportunity this is."
Marrying innovation with the waterfront
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