Dunedin: Scott Technology [100 Years]

### ODT Online Mon, 2 Dec 2013
Dunedin firm with global reach says ‘dream big’
By John Lewis
A century ago, it would have been hard for John Scott to imagine his small family motor repair business turning into a large publicly listed engineering company with offices all around the world. It was one of the things staff at Scott Technology Ltd tried to fathom during 100th anniversary celebrations at the Kaikorai Valley-based headquarters on Saturday.
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### ODT Online Sat, 30 Nov 2013
Scott boasts $28m in orders, $5m R&D grant
By Simon Hartley
Listed automation and robotics company Scott Technology has entered its second century’s trading with a full order book worth $28 million and received confirmation yesterday of a $5 million three-year Government research and development grant.
Diversification in recent years into the meat and mining industries, dairying and superconductor magnetics, alongside the mainstay appliance manufacturing, was paying dividends in several areas, the about 60 shareholders at the annual meeting in Dunedin yesterday heard.
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Scott website: http://www.scott.co.nz/

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images: scott.co.nz – screenshots

DRAFT Dunedin Economic Development Strategy

“We are competing with every other local body in New Zealand trying to attract talent, growth and investment.”

### ODT Online Tue, 19 Jun 2012
Call for’ more mongrel’ in draft strategy
By Chris Morris
Submitters have made their voices heard on Dunedin’s draft economic development strategy. Nearly 100 individuals, groups and organisations have expressed their views. Council staff yesterday confirmed 90 submissions had been received since the draft strategy was unveiled last month by Dunedin City Council chief executive Paul Orders and other members of the steering group. Critics worried the strategy’s statements were “easy to make”, lacked detail and remained “fundamentally … a talk-fest”. Others called for more radical initiatives.
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[Over] Simplistically…
Looking at the partners to the strategy, and who the people are within those partnerships, is it any wonder Dunedin has a lack of business diversity and sharpness in international and domestic markets – or hardly appears at all.
FAIL.

Why is the city council entertaining this draft? Council is filled with bureaucrats who know nothing about business development, plus it has Athol – every smart business knows not to have an Athol. Or old boy councillors and company directors – dead meat for the rort.

The university produces so much traction and sludge it should be ignored, but let’s grab any bright sparks attracted to it and haul them to safety! Whereas, Otago Polytechnic has the capacity over time to produce the raw material of a smart workforce.

Dunedin should be THE LEADER in Otago Southland for business development – it must think regionally/globally – today, DCC gets as far as the Octagon and a couple of old warehouses. Embarrassing.

Very few local businesses think EXPORT.

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### ODT Online Tue, 19 Jun 2012
Mortgages to staff worth $4.5 million
By Chris Morris
Staff across the Dunedin City Council group have been granted millions of dollars worth of home loans sourced by the council’s financial services arm, the Dunedin City Treasury. Figures released to the Otago Daily Times showed DCT had granted 43 loans to staff across the council and its council-controlled organisations (CCOs). The loans stretched back 14 years and were together estimated to be worth between $4.5 million and $5 million.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin and the southern region’s business future

THE CLIMATE
(we’re sluggish, indebted and unproductive, working long hours for unremarkable results, there’s little or no ability to pay all our living expenses even if we can afford a mortgage — few Dunedin businesses are on the global map, very few of our citizens invest in ‘research and development’ or know what export truly involves — there is splendid isolation, no cohesion, and a striking absence of astute regional leadership)

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Our economy is drifting in very dangerous shoals. The only plausible avenue to sustained growth will be export-led. The high value of the dollar precludes this. Unless we act now the painful process of rebalancing our economy will be forced upon us at some future stage. At that point the pain will be even greater.

### ODT Online Fri, 4 May 2012
Opinion
Boosting export sector only way out of malaise
By Peter Lyons
We are living in a world of zombie economies including our own. These economies are characterised by high debt levels, stagnant or shrinking economies and policies of austerity that offer no solution. Finance Minister Bill English is promising a budget of little hope. He offers austerity almost with relish. It fits his ideological bent towards smaller government. A further unexpected $1 billion budget shortfall precludes any positive spending initiatives. Meanwhile the governor of the Reserve Bank wrings his hands over the high New Zealand dollar which is shredding our export sector. He has maintained this ineffective stance for a number of years.

Positive economic management appears beyond the scope of our policy makers.

New Zealand has been in or on the verge of recession since 2007. Most of the Western world has followed a similar path.
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LOCAL SENSELESSNESS
(where the ad hoc stadium spend has crippled the council, all the time missing the bigger outlook of how to serve the South Island’s contribution to export-led economic recovery — oh hey, the council’s junior bureaucrats and mayor say let’s play dress-ups with a few central city warehouses and six suburban amenity centres — the Dunedin City Council has to undergo major attitudinal and structural change)

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Apart from the ongoing clusters, there has never seemed to be any straightforward strategy to push economic growth in the city or the region.

### ODT Online Sat, 5 May 2012
Planning for future of Dunedin Inc
By Dene Mackenzie
Dunedin’s economic development draft strategy will be released on Monday. For the first time, the document will be signed off by stakeholders representing diverse areas of the city. There are several things business editor Dene Mackenzie hopes will be included in the new 10-year plan. For about 25 years, Dunedin’s economic strategy has doddered along. Past plans have included Dunedin City Council officers travelling to visit large-scale manufacturing enterprises in a bid to persuade them to establish themselves within the city boundaries, through to catchy slogans and billboards at airports. During that time, the city has seen its large-scale manufacturing base shrink with the loss of thousands of jobs.

Reviews of city council funding strategies need to be undertaken and the strategy must be inclusive of the needs of the business community. It seems that, often, funding decisions are applied on an ad hoc basis, when better value could be extracted from ratepayer funds.

More than 90% of Dunedin businesses are said to have no intention of exporting in the future and the city captured only 2.5% of the country’s recent migrants. That must change for the city to grow and prosper.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Call for campaign on exports

The Chamber of Commerce says while exporting continues to be concentrated on commodity agriculture, New Zealand has many innovative and creative businesses with the potential to be successful global players.

### idealog.co.nz Friday 11 Nov 2011 at 9:29 am
Leadership
Call for government-business partnership to campaign on exports
By Idealog
The Chamber of Commerce is calling for the incoming government to rethink its approach to exports, joining forces with the private sector to campaign to sell more to the rest of the world. Spokesman Michael Barnett said the traditional focus of increasing exports of conventional merchandise goods needed to shift up the value chain to high-tech, knowledge-based products, the export of services and the returns from outward direct overseas investment. “We believe the best way to improve New Zealand’s export performance is for the incoming government to establish an innovation-focused government-business partnership tasked to lead a campaign to sell more to the world.”
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Idealog: R&D and innovation

“Kids are missing out in New Zealand because there’s no connect between the education system and a vision for where we’re going to grow our economy.” -Sir Paul Callaghan

### idealog.co.nz 18 October 2011 at 3:36 pm
Let’s end the flip-flopping on R&D
By Sarah Robson
What do Rakon, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Tait Electronics, Gallagher Group and Weta Digital have in common? Aside from being successful and enjoying a high profile in business, they’re also the benefactors of the government’s first round of technology development grants, announced late last year. (A second round was awarded in August, with recipients including accounting startup darling Xero.) National pulled no punches in scrapping the Labour government’s all-encompassing R&D tax credit in favour of a targeted, grant-based approach. It’s not a given – businesses have to apply for a slice of the funding pie along with every other man and his dog, and there are no guarantees. But it’s time for government to stop flip-flopping on the issue. Cuts to government spending aren’t going to lift New Zealand out of the economic doldrums. Investment in R&D just might.

Prominent scientist and New Zealander of the Year Sir Paul Callaghan believes New Zealand needs to diversify its economy if its goal is to expand GDP per capita, and start selling ‘brain content’. That means you’re selling products where the manufacturing costs aren’t the main costs of the products – it’s the R&D content.

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Related Posts and Comments:
24.9.11 Idealog: Paul Callaghan’s business plan for New Zealand
21.9.11 John Montgomery: The Economy, Culture and Design of Cities
23.6.11 Kathryn Ryan interviews agribusiness pioneer George Harrison
22.5.11 Audacious idea: New Zealand X-Prize Environmental and Energy

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Solar roof claddings

### idealog.co.nz 28 Sept 2011 at 3:39 pm
Polymers could be key in affordable uptake of solar in homes and office buildings
By Sustain Team
We’re used to seeing massive solar panels strapped to the roofs of houses and office buildings, but a Victoria University lecturer says a process that incorporates solar cells into roofing materials could serve us better. According to Dr Justin Hodgkiss, these cells could provide all the energy used in a home or office building in New Zealand, at a more affordable option. Hodgkiss, a lecturer at the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, said conventional solar cells use silicon to absorb light and convert the energy into electricity. But processing silicon into a working solar cell is very expensive, with the high costs limiting the uptake of the technology by consumers. Hodgkiss is one of a number of local and international scientists who are investigating an alternative option of making solar cells from polymers or plastics. They are building on the work of Nobel Prize winning New Zealand scientist and Victoria alumnus Alan MacDiarmid who discovered the electronic conductivity of polymers. Hodgkiss said the major advantage of using polymers is that they can be dissolved to make an ink and then printed in sheets.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Idealog: Paul Callaghan’s business plan for New Zealand

### idealog.co.nz 22 Sept 2011 @ 4:13 pm
‘Never fear knowledge’ – Paul Callaghan talks sci-tech and entrepreneurial genius
By Esther Goh
Professor Sir Paul Callaghan has written a business plan for New Zealand – and it doesn’t include winning the World Cup.

“Never fear knowledge,” he told an audience of 1500 at the Wellington Town Hall last Wednesday. “If you have a business plan like the one I’m talking about you are not interested in digging up our national parks and resources at the expense of all we hold dear.”

The Victoria University Professor and New Zealander of the Year spoke at the Inaugural Chancellor’s Lecture about creating a more prosperous country through science and technology. Callaghan said New Zealand currently has one of the lowest rates of investment in research and development in the OECD, crippling our ability to achieve prosperity.
Read more + Video (1:15:19)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

University of Otago active in national research collaboration

### ODT Online Wed, 13 Jul 2011
New network aims to take innovation to market
By Simon Hartley
Otago has staked a claim as a founding member in a new science and technology commercialisation network with combined annual research funding of $500 million, between several universities and crown research institutes.

With up to 20 projects, mainly involving life sciences, under way from University of Otago research, its intellectual property (IP) subsidiary, Otago Innovation Ltd, is welcoming the KiwiNet initiative for national research collaboration and the “one stop shop” for potential domestic and overseas investors.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Audacious idea: New Zealand X-Prize Environmental and Energy

Kea “New Zealand, New Thinking” event, New York

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 22/05/2011
$1b prize plan for NZ’s future
By Rob O’Neill – Sunday Star Times
The Government is being urged to invest in new strategies to lift the country out of the economic mire, with one successful entrepreneur suggesting it invest $1 billion in future energy technologies through an audacious prize.
New Zealand needs to build a country around the promises of tomorrow, not the legacies of yesterday, Hyperfactory founder Derek Handley told expatriate Kiwis in New York last week as the government announced the partial sale of many state-owned energy assets.

Handley said $1b is less than a tenth of what the current government has committed to infrastructure projects in the next few years and about the same amount spent bailing out South Canterbury Finance investors. It is also “about twice as much as the amount we hope to lose by hosting the Rugby World Cup”, he said and about the same as our bill for six weeks of imported oil.

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Post by Elizabeth Kerr

At last, PRODUCTIVITY is?

### ODT Online Sat, 2 Apr 2011
Chamber welcomes inquiry into transport
By Dene Mackenzie
The Productivity Commission’s inquiry into international freight transport services is of high importance to Otago and Southland, Otago Chamber of Commerce chief executive John Christie said yesterday.

New Zealand Property Investors vice-president Andrew King said the research on house prices was misguided. They were not the main cause of poor productivity.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Connecting business and science sectors

### ODT Online Thu, 21 Oct 2010
Varsity part of $20m research scheme
The University of Otago is one of first six research institutions to be included in the Government’s new technology transfer voucher scheme. Research, Science and Technology Minister Wayne Mapp yesterday announced the initial list of six research institutions from which businesses participating in the scheme could choose. The “vouchers” will be awarded on application to businesses with a specific research and development project, but little or no in-house research and development capability.
The voucher scheme would enhance the connection between the business and science sectors, which would lead to innovation and business growth, which benefited all New Zealanders.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr