New Zealand and Canada: poles apart but close in entrepreneurial culture

17 May, 2019

For the past few months, the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s Unleash Space has been fortunate to be the temporary home of visiting professor Dr Claude Laguë, former Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Ottawa in Canada and a passionate advocate of entrepreneurship and innovation. Read More

Hynds Entrepreneurial Fellow appointed

13 May, 2019

An international search for a Hynds Entrepreneurial Fellow has now finished, and the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is delighted to announce the appointment of Peter Rachor. The newly established Hynds Entrepreneurial Fellows Programme aims to embed innovation and entrepreneurship into the curricula across the University of Auckland by working with and supporting academics from all faculties and disciplines. To achieve this, a Community of Practice is to be established, led by Peter - the Hynds Entrepreneurial Fellow Learning Designer. Read More

Nazia’s Solve It experience still feels too good to be true

28 Mar, 2019

When Nazia, a recent postgraduate student at the University of Auckland, signed up for Solve It she couldn’t have imagined it would lead to her getting her dream job interning at the Auckland District Health Board (ADHB). Solve It is a corporate innovation challenge, run by the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, where students form teams to solve challenging business problems for New Zealand organisations. Read More

More than balance required to make things better

7 Mar, 2019

“Better the balance, better the world” is the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day and it is certainly difficult to disagree with this liberal feminist mantra and #BalanceforBetter. However, as a critical scholar in the field of women’s entrepreneurship I suggest that ‘balance’ or levelling the playing field is one strategy but it is only a small feat in comparison to changing structural gender inequalities and persistent biases that often remain, even when/if societies do reach gender parity in politics, pay, prestigious job occupations and other societal ‘places’ where masculinity has dominated. Read More

Introducing Jared Goffe, CEO of Unleash Space for 2019!

27 Feb, 2019

One year on from the official opening of Unleash Space, the University of Auckland’s new innovation hub is thriving. Unleash Space is providing a supportive and fun environment where anyone can create what they imagine, design for today and prototype for tomorrow. We’ve had a staggering 1,380 students and staff join as members of this state-of-the-art maker space and we’re not stopping there. At the helm of this fast-paced innovation hub is Jared Goffe, Unleash Space CEO for 2019, who is in charge of leading the student team of Unleashers. Read More

Growing innovators and entrepreneurs at the University of Auckland

27 Feb, 2019

In this article, Director of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Wendy Kerr writes on “How we acted like a start-up and achieved phenomenal growth.” This article was first published in the Australian issue of the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) magazine, published to coincide with the second University-Industry Engagement Conference for Asia-Pacific held February 2019 in Sydney, Australia. Wendy Kerr has been connected with the UIIN for three years. Last year she moderated two panels, one in London, one in Sydney. Read More

Meet the new CEO on the block

25 Feb, 2019

As a student-led entrepreneurial development programme, each year a new Velocity committee is formed enabling students to take on roles within Velocity to ensure its relevancy and success. They also pick up a wealth of skills and experience in doing so. The role of CEO is a both a privilege and a challenge. Leading Velocity this year is Nick Goldstein. Nick is in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Commerce (Economics and Finance) and has been involved with Velocity since 2018 as Marketing Lead as well as part of the Education and Social teams. Read More

Summer Lab sparks new entrepreneurs

30 Jan, 2019

2019 is off to an entrepreneurial start for 68 eager students who have entered our fourth Summer Lab programme. This is a popular innovation and entrepreneurship programme for budding entrepreneurs who have little experience or knowledge about what it takes to develop a venture. This year it has attracted a diverse group who have split into 15 teams, each with a unique venture idea they want to develop into a business. Pivotal to the success of the Summer Lab programme is the mentorship received from industry experts. That’s why we are so appreciative of the 19 mentors who are volunteering their time to mentor and develop the next generation of entrepreneurial thinkers and doers. Read More

Student entrepreneurs going from strength to strength

13 Dec, 2018

A year has passed since the five winning teams of the University of Auckland 2017 Velocity $100k Challenge became the inaugural participants in the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s VentureLab incubator. Designed to support students and staff with a developed venture concept, the incubator programme offered each of the five teams the expertise, space and resources to further progress their idea over six months. As the 2018 $100k Challenge winners prepare to enter the VentureLab for themselves, we thought we’d check in with the 2017 teams to see how they have continued to progress since their time with the initiative. Read More

Velocity alumnus heads to Stanford for Ignite Programme

29 Nov, 2018

Arash Tayebi, the CEO of Kara Technologies Ltd, is travelling to Stanford University, California, in January to spend two months at the Stanford Graduate School of Business programme “Stanford Ignite”, which helps innovators formulate, develop, and commercialise ideas. He is the eighth Velocity alumni to be accepted into Stanford Ignite and joins an impressive line up of innovators and entrepreneurs coming out of the University of Auckland who have used the programme to acquire the business fundamentals that will help them to succeed in their entrepreneurial ventures. Read More