Mentors meet off-line

By SIMON COLLINS

Twenty high-tech innovators who have formed an online mentoring and discussion network will meet for the first time at Taupo this weekend.

The Innovation Online Network (Ion), which includes local and expatriate entrepreneurs, aims to accelerate New Zealand's wealth creation from information and communication technologies.

Members include Xsol software founder John Blackham, Innovation Waikato chief executive John Birch, Saudi Arabia-based oil industry consultant Graham Elliott, and Helen Baxter, who edits the European Commission's knowledge management website www.knowledgeboard.com from her home at Maramarua.

The host will be Rob McEwen, a founder of the Texas marketing company M2K who now runs the ThisQuarter marketing agency for high-tech companies from Tauhara Sunrise Lodge at Acacia Bay.

Project facilitator Paul Spence, a director of Wellington knowledge management company GeniusNet, said four business start-ups would present their plans at the meeting and the more experienced members would provide advice.

He said Ion offered a public electronic forum for discussing entrepreneurship and innovation, and a members' "whiteboard" where people could get pointers on raising capital and other issues.

Innovators Online Network