e-centre deal grows business in China
by Jodeal Cadacio
North Harbour News (2/5/2008)
Massey University’s e-centre has opened a new opportunity in China for technology based New Zealand companies. The centre has signed a partnership agreement with Beijing’s Hi-tech International Business Incubator offering small and medium-sized enterprises …
Events - Dates to Note - 1st May 2007
Come along to an Outside the Box breakfast presentation (
at the e-centre) to find out about the Global Technology Partnership. Find out how experts can be sourced globally and utilised within your organisation, hear guest speakers and discuss your company’s technical problems with the Global Technology Partnership specialists.
Latest Massey e-centre graduates look forward to growth
Top left. Steve Corbett CEO e-centre, Keith Phillips President QLBS.com, Steve Lewin Director QLBS.com, Margaret Mulqueen Director QLBS.com and David Kelly CEO Zeald.com
AUCKLAND, 20 July 2006: Two new entrepreneurial start-ups, Zeald.com and Quantel International graduate from the e-centre at Massey today as they move to their next phase of substantial business development.
Perceptive Team left to right
Vinod Dewnani Project Manager, Nimarta Bawa Marketing Manager, Chris Pescott Managing Director, Nick Niblett Client Relationship Manager.
Celebrating Success
Perceptive and Alumni Company CleanFlow Systems
Winners in 2006 Westpac Enterprise North Shore Business Excellence Awards
New talking point at the e-centre - Filtration System
Within the e-centre for the moment is a model of a dust extraction and filtration system. Filtercorp is a North Shore based company producing filtration systems for many of the large industrial plants around the country and overseas. Their clients range from Aluminium plants like Comalco where they have 26,000 filtration bags filtering all the air before being released into the atmosphere, to Fontera where they provide all the filtration for the milk powder plants.
eComgroup (e-centre residents) have spent the last 2 years developing a product called
eWatch that will integrate with this type of industrial plant. eWatch is essentially a remote hardware unit that links into the operation of the system providing both control and monitoring capability of the system and linking it back to an internet based server where the data from the system is logged and a control interface is provided.
Opposition leader Dr Don Brash recently toured the University’s Auckland campus at the invitation of Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Raine.
Dr Don Brash and Steve Corbett, CEO, e-centre Limited.
In their two-hour visit, Dr Brash and National MPs John Key (Helensville), Wayne Mapp (North Shore) and Paula Bennett (list) visited senior staff and researchers on location in Biological Sciences, Design, Psychology, the e-centre and the Recreation Centre.
Dr Brash described the visit as “fantastic”.
“The energy and passion of everyone I met at Albany bodes well for an even brighter future,” he said.
Professor Raine says the visit stemmed from Dr Brash’s presence at a North Shore Technology Innovation Forum at which Professor Raine presented in May.
“He expressed interest in visiting the campus at that time and from our point of view it was an opportunity to raise awareness amongst politicians of Massey’s growing role in Auckland and that the University is very much an engine for economic and social development on the North Shore.
“I took the opportunity to outline to Dr Brash the capital development challenges facing the whole New Zealand university system also.
“We toured the campus and made particular visits to the School of Design, the School of Psychology, the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, and the e-centre.”
Hothouse Flowers Bloom
Established specifically to nurture and grow entrepreneurial technologies companies, the e-centre is a partnership between the University, North Shore City Council and the Tindall Foundation. The vision is of an entrepreneurial community based on innovation and the commercialisation of research and development.
The young companies that have come into the e-centre are typically a one- or two-person operation with a technology-based business idea and a strong entrepreneurial streak.
The centre provides support in many aspects of business development but also provides links to expertise in other parts of the University.
Early startups under the wing of chief executive Steve Corbett are now well on their feet and making inroads into world markets.
e-centre Resident's Are Award Winners
The e-centre is proud to announce a resident company
Perceptive won the Benefitz Best New Start-up Business Award
and
CleanFlow Systems Limited (e-centre Alumni) won the
Chelsea Sugar Excellence in Export Award includes
The finalists were selected after a rigorous judging process.
The winners were announced at a Gala Dinner on Thursday, August 31st 2006 at the North Harbour Stadium.
30 May 2006 Entering the Dragon’s Den
Being ‘investment ready’ is the main theme of a fully-funded NZTE workshop scheduled for 30 May. The full-day session reveals what investors typically look for in a business; how to prepare a professional business case; the process of securing funding; plus the legal implications of raising capital.
Read on ...
“Hi Tech Monsoon”
Building Hi Tech companies on the North Shore.
What can we learn from India?
The e-centre at Massey University, Albany, has a joint project with Enterprise North Shore (the Hi Tech Growth Project) to grow hi tech companies on the North Shore. The e-centre currently has 13 companies based at the Bob Tindall Building on the Albany campus. Gate 5, Oaklands Road, off Albany Highway
New Zealand technology companies will always need to be able to compete with global companies both locally and globally. Steve Corbett, the CEO of the e-centre, has therefore been asking some key questions, such as: What are the constraints to export-led growth for North Shore Hi Tech companies?; How can companies better access the expertise within the University?; How can companies benefit from local government support e.g. through Enterprise North Shore?; What innovative processes and technologies are available but not utilised?
To help answer these questions the e-centre went global to find examples of who we could learn from. The result is the establishment of a global ‘entrepreneur in residence’ from India. Somnath Chatterjee will be based at the e-centre for March 2006. Somnath has just completed a stint as CEO of the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at the Indian Institute of Management, which focuses on technology management for Hi Tech and mass impact innovations. Somnath continues to be a director of one of India’s fastest growing electronics companies, and advises a group of SMEs located in Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. His major project at the moment is “Indian IT and the manufacturing bus”. Somanth will be working with selected e-centre companies and North Shore based Hi Tech companies on global opportunities and will be presenting a series of lectures (“Hi Tech Monsoons”) for North Shore companies each Wednesday in March.
Wednesday 8 March at 5.00 pm
Indian IT and the Manufacturing Bus.
Lessons for NZ manufacturing.
Wednesday 15 March at 5.00 pm
Should NZ companies outsource to India
Does it work for NZ companies – when should you not outsource.
Wednesday 22 March at 5.00 pm
The key secrets for growing hi-tech global companies
How to grow global hi-tech companies – The Indian experience.
e-centre Hosts School Students
Over 100 students from secondary schools in Auckland were hosted by the e-centre over two evenings. The visit was part of the Smales Farm Technology Office Park and Massey University sponsored ‘21st Century Career Pathways in Technology’.
The purpose of the 2006 programme is to inspire and inform Year 12 & 13 students about the huge range of technology career and training opportunities, based on tertiary education available to them in the future. The programme will provide students with opportunities to interact with and aspire to the role models of highly successful New Zealand business and research people in many technology sectors. Topics will include: fruit and food biotechnology, biosecurity, forensics, medical applications, smart materials, high performance sports apparel, smart electronics and robotics.
CEO’s of ten e-centre start-up companies gave their time to inspire the students with their personal stories of endeavour, challenge, perseverance and success.
Telecom New Zealand Incubators Expo
April saw the e-centre team down in Wellington showcasing its fabulous resident companies. The Incubators Expo saw all 16 of New Zealand’s business incubators come together and celebrate the successes of the incubation industry. A diverse range of sectors were represented, from fashion to engineering, food to ICT, with many of their innovative products on show. The e-centre, specialising in growing ICT and technology focused businesses, was joined by resident ecomGroup, with much interest being shown in their innovative tracking products. [more news from Incubators NZ]
8 MAR 2005
Well done to the e-centre / Enterprise North Shore team who took part in the 2005 Relay for Life. Spending 24 hours on the track turned out to be a breeze! We walked / ran a total distance of 259.2 kilometers (or 337,703 steps) and between us we raised $1528.80 for the Cancer Society.
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29 OCT 2004
The e-centre team extend a warm welcome to our newest tenant, DHI Water and Environment. A subsiduary of an independent, international consulting and research organisation, DHI adds to the leading edge technologies and software tools that are housed at the e-centre. The company will benefit from building strong links with the Mathematics department of Massey University.
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1 SEP 2004
Congratulations to CleanFlow Systems for winning 2 awards at the Westpac Enterprise North Shore Business Excellence Awards. They are now recognised as the best in North Shore innovation and exporting, winning the "3M New Zealand Excellence in Innovation Award" and the "Chelsea Sugar Excellence in Exporting Award". Well done! Congratulations are also due to Zeald who attained "Finalist" status in 2 of the awards.
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22 JUL 2004
Two of our star tenant companies are in the finals of the upcoming Westpac Enterprise North Shore Business Excellence Awards. Between them, CleanFlow Systems and Zeald.com are finalists in 5 out of 12 categories! The team at CleanFlow are hopeful of taking home the '3M New Zealand Excellence in Innovation Award', the 'Chelsea Sugar Excellence in Exporting Award' and the 'Vector Best Emerging Business Award'. Zeald.com are enjoying the prospect of winning both the 'Telecom Local Directories Best New Start-up Award' and the 'Actionmail / Alliance Construction Excellence in Marketing Award'. Here at the e-centre we wish the best of luck to both companies, who find out their fate on Thursday 26th August!
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13 JUL 2004
KiWi-Fi launch at e-centre on Wednesday 14th July. The start-up company hopes to revolutionise the free wireless hotspot market by giving it a way to make money. Their patented software allows businesses to play "ticker-tape" style advertising accross users' screens while they are connected to the internet. The product is currently being trialled at Gulf Harbour, Whangaparaoa. For more information, visit
www.kiwifi.com
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24 FEB 2004
e-centre tenant Esphion has won a $400,000 Government grant and signed on with Hong Kong security Software distributor Global Orient. The money from Technology NZ, which Esphion will match dollar for dollar will go into research and development on software products to dedect internet worms. Esphion has created computer algorithms and designed network analysing software that detects abnormal traffic patterns. For more info visit
www.esphion.com (Source: NZ Hearld 24/02/04 Business Section)
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16 FEB 2004
GOING GLOBAL WORKSHOP. On the 13th to the 23rd of Jan, MIT Sloan buisness students worked at the e-centre with selected ICT companies from the North Shore and the e-centre, to evaluate the global strategy of each company. Their findings were presented at the Going Global Workshop, held on Friday the 30th of Jan at Massey University.
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24 DEC 2003
Congratulations to Wayne Smith from Panalam, who on Thursday 18/12/03 had an early xmas present - a baby girl named Christinana!!!!
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18 JUL 2003
StartUp application now online!
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28 MAY 2003
Laminate Design Software Company Panalam move into the e-centreStart-up office. The company has developed a software application which meets some of the needs of designers and fabricators using fibre composite materials. For further information please contact Wayne Smith (09) 8173407 or Paul Stock (09) 845 4467.
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8 MAY 2003
Principal of Albany Campus & Chairman of the e-centre, Professor Ian Watson, announces the launch of the e-centre StartUp program. The program is a new initiative aimed at Massey University entrepreneurs. For more information click here:
http://www.e-centremassey.org.nz/start-up.asp
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