Published on the 18/05/2015 | Written by Donovan Jackson

While Xero was named winner of the New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards’ most prestigious prize, the depth and breadth of Kiwi ingenuity on display at the recently held event attests to an industry in rude health…

Over 150 entrants in the 2015 edition marked a high point for the awards, introduced in 1994, and demonstrated the growing number of New Zealand companies operating successfully in the information technology environment.
In winning the PwC Company of the Year accolade, cloud financial software vendor Xero topped nominees Serko, which makes expense management software, Shotover Camera Systems, which produces camera stabilisers, and ARANZ Geo, which makes geological modelling software.

The Awards coincided with the release of the MBIE’s 2015 ICT Sector Report, which shows that the technology software and services sector has grown at a rate of nine percent per annum since 2008. It now contributes 1.7 percent of GDP, a fact referred to from the podium by a jubilant minister Steven Joyce. He called particular attention to export performance, noting that exports have grown at 14 percent per annum over the last six years to exceed $930 million in 2014.

Joyce pointed out that IT stocks now make up approximately 10 percent of the value of all listings on the NZX main board, compared with just one percent five years ago.

The report notes, too, that there are over 10,000 domestic IT businesses in this country.

Wayne Norrie, chair of the NZ Hi-Tech Trust said one of the challenges the sector faces is that it tends to preach to the converted. “We need to be better at letting the general public know that as an industry we are bigger than wine and many other sectors – the fourth biggest – and that’s when we narrow it down just to companies working directly in ICT.”

One of the biggest handbrakes for the burgeoning industry is attracting youth into it, Norrie added. “We need to get the public to know that technology is thriving, that it is one of the fastest growing export industries and one which plays to every natural advantage New Zealand has. Highly paid developers want to work in places they love; New Zealand can be the Silicon Valley of the South Pacific.”

He cited time zones, the “weightless” nature of intellectual property and software, and natural resources which include a population of can-do people as among those natural advantages. “The potential is huge and many of the companies that are in the tech sector are targeting offshore markets rather than domestic ones for revenue [because our local population isn’t necessarily big enough to sustain those companies]. There are a lot of companies that people just haven’t ever heard of locally, which have done well and are poised for explosive growth.”

In perhaps the most memorable moments of the awards ceremony, StretchSense founder Ben O’Brien set the bar high for acceptance speeches by letting out a jubilant ‘Whoohoo’ on being named the first winner of the night (Hi-Tech Young Achiever). StretchSense makes stretchable capacitive sensors for measuring human body motion.
That bar was arguably surpassed by Mindscape’s JD Trask’s f-bomb; named New Zealand Venture Investment Fund Hi-Tech Startup Company of the Year, the company founder exclaimed “**** yeah” to the assembled royalty of the local technology industry. Mindscape builds tools that help developers produce better software.

The only winner of more than one category was Umajin, which provides a solution that allows non-programmers to create cross-platform mobile apps. The company took the Innovative Hi-Tech Software Product, and Best Technology Solution for the Creative Sector awards.

The cachet of the awards was further enhanced by the this year’s international judging panel, which included American business strategist, Gary Hamel; Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak; Massive founder Claudia Batten; Google director of engineering Craig Nevill-Manning; Cisco senior vice president, Howard Charney; Xero CMO Andy Lark; and IDG Ventures managing director Pat Kenealy.

All the winners:

• PwC Company of the Year: Xero
• Cisco Hi-Tech Emerging Company of the Year: Volpara Solutions
• Endace Innovative Hi-Tech Hardware Product: Phitek
• Duncan Cotterill Innovative Hi-Tech Software Product: Umajin
• UK Trade & Investment Innovative Hi-Tech Mobile Product: GeoZone
• IBM Innovative Initiative: Network for Learning
• New Zealand Venture Investment Fund Hi-Tech Startup Company of the Year: Mindscape
• Grow Wellington Innovative Hi-Tech Services: Straker Translations
• NZTE Innovative Hi-Tech Agritech Product: SnapitHD
• Qual IT Best Technology Solution for the Public Sector: Foster Moore
• Fronde Hi-Tech Young Achiever: Ben O’Brien
• Callaghan Innovation Best Technology Solution for the Creative Sector: Umajin