Hi-tech, not sheep the answer to our future

Resourcefulness is a valued quality in New Zealanders, particularly in those in the rural heartland.  

Last century, when a new part for a failed piece of machinery was needed, that part was usually 12,000 miles - and several months - away in England. So the number eight fencing wire solution was born.

Out of the rural sector has come some of our proudest technological achievements. We need to capture that ability to think outside the square and apply it in other high-tech areas to turn this country around.

Economic basket case

According to Vincent Heeringa, writing in Idealog

In 1950, New Zealand was ranked sixth in the world in terms of gross domestic product per capita. By 2007 we’d fallen to 32.

Where to from here? Well, make sure you’re seated. According to projections by the infrastructure investment firm Morrison and Co, if we keep our current performance we’ll be 47th in the world in 2025. That’s two spots behind Kazakhstan.

And we can't go on relying on farming to haul us out of the economic mire.

Victoria University scientist Paul Callaghan points out that the $30 billion gap between us and Australia would require more than five Fonterras, or a quadrupling of our tourist numbers. We would literally run out of land before we even got there.

Our answer appears to lie in high-technology industries. In other words, we need to take the ability to think outside the square and innovate, as we do in agriculture, and apply it to other high-technology sectors to turn the economy around.

Callaghan notes that the top revenue generators in the US are technology companies: Microsoft, Apple, Genentech and Nokia.

We already have such companies, but in small doses: Weta, Gallagher, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Tait Electronics, Navman. “They are sustainable, environmentally and socially benign, and there is no limit to the number of such companies which we might enjoy,” Callaghan writes.

Hope on horizon

Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide, Saatchi and Saatchi, writes on the new Air New Zealand "Cuddle Class"

Innovation comes from the edge. For most European travellers the edge of the world is New Zealand. That means a 24 hour flight, and there are plenty who don’t want to part with a huge amount of cash for business class – where you can get a real sleep. So congratulations to Air New Zealand for putting on their thinking hats and solving some of the negatives of long haul travel. Skycouches on their new Boeing planes mean that three seats form one bed, with an extra panel raised from the footrest area to give space for two to sleep in what they’re calling “cuddle class”.

 If we want full employment and a reasonable standard of living, we need more of this innovative thinking, and more support (management, venture capital and marketing expertise) to get those ideas that look as if they're going to fly off the ground.