Progress to date (activities 2009)

Progress to date

Activities in 2007/2008

1. Creation of the Ian Watson Innovation room
The Ian Watson Innovation room, a 100m² office within the e-centre, provides PHD students with the opportunity to work on their research while being in a business environment. The number of students varied between 4-9 in its first year.

2. Business Led Research Projects
• Precept Health Ltd – Masters project, Zade
• CMCTEC – MBA, market research project, Sonar6 – Samir Khattar
- MBA, market research project, Agritech – Gagan Chugh, Samir Khattar, Kalyan Muthyala, Bharat Bhatia
- MBA, extensive customer satisfaction survey – Matthew Playne
• Centeros Ltd – MBA, market research project – Sonal Agrawal, Sumit Ghosh
• BiPredict Ltd - Con-joint modeling for pricing. Peter Jaques –Visiting maths teacher from Takapuna Grammar

3. Enterprising Skills for Undergraduates
In this area the following has been achieved:
• Hamish Coop and Steve Corbett have delivered several lectures to Massey business students
• Links are being established to events that review and promote final year student projects in areas of Design, Engineering and Food Technology, and Product Development
• The programme sponsored two students into the Entrepreneurship Skills course run by Dr Marco Van Gelderen
• In September the programme hosted the leading strategy students from Massey University, University of Auckland, Otago, Canterbury Waikato and AUT. The students carried out a strategic review of four companies based at the e-centre
• Sponsorship of the Business Case competition

Activities in 2009

1. Develop entrepreneurial skills

The e-centre places strong emphasis on equipping students with the right skills in order to build and grow sustainable, global businesses.
Examples of activities which teach entrepreneurial skills are:

a. Internship programme:
e-centre ltd and Massey University College of Business have launched an internship programme for outstanding Massey University graduates in order to actively support the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

The programme is aimed at students majoring in Entrepreneurship and began in
June 2009 with the appointment of graduate student Sabrina Nagel. She and
future graduate interns will work with a range of companies from those developing concepts to other developing global markets.

e-centre’s first Intern Sabrina Nagel

“Our goal is to take two interns to work full time in the e-centre. There will be opportunities for additional students to work on specific companies. The internship programme works two ways: it is ideal in providing excellent resources to our companies and the student intern provides a direct linkage back into the university to continually build the business relationship with the University.”
http://www.btob.co.nz/cms/news/2009/07/art10004389.php

b. e-centre courses:
This year we ran a series of workshops on developing team leadership.

c. Lectures:
Steve Corbett and Hamish Coop have delivered lectures to Massey MBA students. Steve Corbett has also presented to undergraduate students on various occasions (e.g. Massey League and New Venture Project class)

d. Sponsoring the Go! Competition:
Organised by the Business Student Group at Massey University Albany and sponsored by the e-centre and the various Albany Colleges the event intends to encourage young entrepreneurial talents to turn their ideas into reality. The GO! Competition aims to find the best innovative business idea/product based on a genuine gap or opportunity.

Entries were received from students from different disciplines of the Albany campus (Design, Science and Business) and the 16 entries were evaluated by a panel of judges which included Steve Corbett.

As a result of the competition in 2009, the e-centre has offered two students (of which one is a PHD student) a 90 day hot desk space in the e-centre. The two other finalists will also consult the e-centre in the future concerning their ideas.
http://www.btob.co.nz/cms/news/2009/10/go_competition_unleashes_entrepreneurial_skills.php

e. New Venture Project paper:
As part of this paper, which is taught at Massey University in Semester 2 by Bill Kirkley, students have to write a business plan. Bill Kirkley will refer the 1-3 best plans down to the e-centre in November of each year.

f. Supporting Massey League:
Steve Corbett provided mentoring assistance to the participants of the Massey League. Representatives of the group also meet regularly in the Bob Tindall Building as part of the NZ Business Challenge.

2. Provide business experience

The e-centre allows students to grow and extend their skills by applying their learned skills into a business environment.
Examples of activities which provide business experience are:

a. Employment and graduate hire:
Various e-centre residents/alumni employ Massey students. The following companies have employed Massey graduates/students in the past or are currently looking at employing graduates/students:
- Precept Health: Employed an engineering masters student for one year
- Mi4corners: Employed a music student for two months, currently looking to fill a part-time position
- WhoStoleMyMoney: Employed a Design student for one day, a computer engineering student for two weeks and currently employing a computer engineering student
- e-centre: currently employing an accounting/finance student on a part-time basis as an accounting assistant
- FeatureIT: currently looking for three graduates filling a market research position and two technology research positions
- Myrecipes: currently looking for a graduate to fill a product development role

b. Engaging students in research projects and hire:
e-centre employed a MBA business graduate to work on a consulting project for Investment New Zealand for two months. This provided some valuable real work experience for the student and a cost effective staffing solution for e-centre.
Results from prior research project. The work undertaken by the Master student for Precept has formed the Design framework for the company’s new product development in medical device integration. The company will be taking this product into the US market over the next 24 months.

3. Provide links to businesses and networking

The e-centre helps students to see commercial applications for their research and connects students with the business community.
Examples of activities which provide links to businesses are:

a. Ian Watson Innovation room:
Currently, 6 PHD students are based in the e-centre (refer to Appendix 1). Two students are working on topics related to speech translation and noise cancellation and four students are working on topics related to a wearable assistive device used for rehabilitation/amplification.
e-centre has linked a local technology company, Smart Orthotics, with the four students working on the assistive device and the company is very keen to build a relationship with this team.
The two students working on speech related topics have been introduced to e-centre companies Cantovation and Speechschool.tv.

b. e-centre events:
The e-centre regularly invites students to come along to networking events (e.g. stakeholder nights, cluster meetings etc.)

The e-centre also runs a regular “knowledge night” which is a function with around 5 residents and students presenting their current projects to the rest of our residents. It provides students with practice at presentation skills and provides input into their research projects.

c. Sponsoring the Business Doctor Competition:
Inspired by the nationally run business case competitions, the Business Doctor Competition, organised by the Business Student Group Albany, is intended to develop students’ analytical thinking and leadership skills through applying gained knowledge to a real-world situation. It also provides an ideal networking opportunity for students to link in with the business community.

Groups of four students need to develop a practical, action-oriented solution to a business case in a given timeframe (usually 2-3hours) and three finalists present their solution to an audience of around 100 people to determine the winner.