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Invest in young people, New Zealand conference told
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The only speaker aged under 30 at yesterday's Ice Ideas conference encouraged people retiring in the next 20 years to make a meaningful investment in at least one young person.
Fady Mishriki, co-founder of start-up PowerbyProxi, told the 600 delegates at the Auckland conference that his world-leading wireless power company was born out of the "entrepreneurial ecosystem" that has emerged in the ten years since Auckland business incubator The Icehouse was established. The ecosystem simply needed more investment, he said.
Mishriki earned an engineering degree at Auckland University, participated in the University's Spark entrepreneurship challenge, and eventually made business head-way under the incubator's guidance.
Since 2009 the company has secured funding from Kiwi venture capitalists Movac and Evander and now has over 30 customers, with five of those in the Fortune 100.
Despite his success, Mishriki said all but one of his graduating classmates had left New Zealand for more money overseas.
"My big challenge for all New Zealanders is rather than just seeking good money overseas, take advantage of the world class entrepreneurial ecosystem we now have here," said Mishriki.
"Create great businesses here, create prosperity for New Zealand, for yourself and for the countless number of people who will choose to follow you in your international endeavours."
One investor who knows the value of youthful innovation is Peter Thiel - another conference speaker who counts Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg among the young talents he has spotted.
The so-called "super-angel" investor has made much of his estimated US$1.5 billion fortune on the back of a 20 year-old's social networking idea.
He also founded e-commerce giant PayPal and has invested wisely in several other technology companies including LinkedIn.
Thiel has a soft spot for New Zealand, having previously called this country a utopia, and he has already invested in local online accounting start-up Xero and trans-Tasman cable builder Pacific Fibre.
One of the biggest foreign investor to show a public interest in New Zealand, Thiel's opinion carries weight and could provide the impetus local venture capital markets need.
As the drawcard speaker for conference, Thiel said the "big waves" of business success would follow from unique technology ideas which could be scaled globally.
"It is especially critical in developed countries like the United States and New Zealand that you need to try to do new things - things will not get better by simply copying things," he said.
"Australia has been geared more towards globalisation, there's a lot of exporting of coal and things like that to China.
"New Zealand I think has to be geared more towards technology - it's been the more challenging space to be in over the last decade but it's going to be a promising one in the decades ahead."
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