Quest for innovative best ends this month

Photo: Four of last year award winners, (L-R): Toni Moyes, 8i; Lisa King, Eat My Lunch; Dale Clareburt, Weirdly; Stephen Henry Kode Biotech; Glenn Martin, Martin Jetpack. 

New Zealand Innovation Award organisers are searching for the best Kiwi companies that are breaking new ground, producing world first activities, brands and products.
 
The entries to the 2016 NZ Innovation Awards close on July 29 and the organisers are looking for new innovating and entrepreneurial companies like last year’s supreme award winner Kode Biotech, which has developed a platform that can cure cancer using auto immune responses.
 
Awards organiser and New Zealand Innovation Council chief executive Louise Webster says they are looking for entries covering agribusiness and environment, design and engineering, education, financial, health and science, food and beverage, tech solutions, communications, entertainment and sustainability.
 
“Many of the awards celebrate and profile organisations that connect to sectors which make a significant contribution to the New Zealand economy, generating considerable value, jobs and exports.  If we shift just one percent of medium sized firms and grow them into large firms it will add $26 billion of growth to our gross domestic product,” Webster says.

“As well as the supreme award others to be acknowledged include the New Zealand start-up innovator of the year, the New Zealand export innovator, the young New Zealand innovator and the most inspiring New Zealand individual, which last year went to the Jetpack inventor Glenn Martin.
 
“Every day Kiwis doing world-changing things should enter this year’s awards. We’ve found previous winners love to be recognised and respected for all the great work they do. It gives them credibility, increases their profile and really helps in raising capital for business growth.

“The hope for our economy is that the best of the 2016 innovators become the next Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Gallagher Group or Air New Zealand, producing thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in overseas earnings and inspiring the next generation of kiwi innovators.”
 
Last year’s supreme innovator of the year Kode Biotech’s chief executive and Auckland University of Technology professor Stephen Henry says the award success meant a lot to him.
 
“It was a recognition of the hard work done over many years by my team and of the support Kode Biotech has received from Auckland University of Technology and our investors,” he says.
 
The sixth annual awards finalists will be named on September 6 and winners will be announced at an awards event in Auckland on October 20.

For further information contact New Zealand Innovation Council chief executive Louise Webster on 021 484 208.