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Find out what’s happening right now in New Zealand’s business and innovation ecosystem. Learn about upcoming events, new corporate challenges, funding rounds, applications for incubators and accelerators, Scale-Up NZ updates, and industry news.
Air New Zealand is planning to have an electric aircraft in its fleet by 2030, and its turboprop fleets will eventually be replaced with aircraft powered by alternative energy, its chief pilot says. In an interview for Capa – Centre of Aviation, Air New Zealand chief operational integrity and safety officer, David Morgan, said the national carrier, and the aviation industry, had to find solutions to reduce emissions and combat climate change. “We are of the view that we would like to see a zero carbon aircraft in our fleet sooner rather than later.” Morgan said he hoped that would be by 2030.
A robotic harvester project could be a "game changer" for New Zealand's asparagus industry, growers say. The New Zealand Asparagus Council and Tauranga-based Robotics Plus will work alongside Kiwi growers to develop a world-first, commercial-scale autonomous robotic asparagus harvester. The harvester will help address ongoing labour shortages in the industry and support growers to tap into high-value export markets. The Government's Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFF Futures) fund is contributing $2.6 million to the $5.83 million project.
This week’s guest on Business is Boring is someone who sees the situation is screwed. He’s also a large scale property developer. And he’s doing something about it. Mark Todd is the co-founder of Ockham Residential – if you live in Auckland, you’ll probably know their apartment developments. Over the years Ockham has helped create a more compact city by doing things like advocating for ditching requirements for carparks, and more importantly maybe, by building the kind of apartments people actually want to live in and have as neighbours.
Insurance platform JAVLN has acquired insurtech start-up JRNY, and will be using its AI-driven technology to bolster its growth and its customer offering. JRNY uses AI to have conversations with customers and make recommendations around products using data insights. JAVLN CEO Dale Smith said the offering will be a great fit for JAVLN’s existing platform, and will support advisers, underwriters and insurers across the Asia-Pacific region to improve their customer experience.
An group of innovative students from Mackenzie College in South Canterbury have developed a product to stop water troughs from freezing over. They have called it the Frostease Flexi-Mat. The floating mat is punctured with holes to allow water to come through for the cows. The cows provide the 'power' to keep troughs from freezing by pushing on the mat to get at the water.
Dr Shalini Divya is co-founder of TasmanIon, which is commercialising her research around using the earth’s abundant aluminium to make a new generation of more recyclable, sustainable and equitable batteries. To talk their mission, the science behind it and her journey from academia to entrepreneurship, Divya joined Business is Boring via Zoom from Wellington this week.
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