Arash Tayebi came to New Zealand as an international student to complete his PhD in electrical engineering. He says the university sparked an entrepreneurial spirit he didn't know he had. It inspired him to start a venture borne out of personal experience. Arash has a disease calls Meniere’s disease that resulted in him losing hearing in his left ear. He wants to help the deaf community by addressing the pain point of there not being enough teachers available who know sign language. Arash co-founded social enterprise Kara Technologies which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and digital humans to translate content into sign language. It uses AI and hyper-realistic avatars, with a particular emphasis on making educational material accessible for deaf children.

The founders of Kara Technologies were all students of the University of Auckland. They participated in the Velocity entrepreneurship programme, winning the social entrepreneurship category of the $100k challenge, took part in the University’s six month VentureLab incubator programme and accessed many thousands of dollars of funding from UniServices as well as continued support and mentorship. The team are now alumni and continue to work on Kara full time. Arash says: "I was pretty shy to talk about this idea to change the way deaf people communicate. I thought I might be judged or called crazy. But at the University of Auckland there are people waiting for you to come and share your ideas. It's a place where you can grow very fast and be ready to change the planet."

In leading development of opportunities for entrepreneurship within the University of Auckland, a key learning was the importance of including students in leadership and decision making processes in order for the entrepreneurial ecosystem to thrive. Student committees have made entrepreneurship more accessible and less intimidating. The student committee that organises the University’s Velocity student entrepreneurship programme recruit students to participate through using vernacular, examples and marketing tactics that appeal to their contemporaries.

UniServices runs an Investment Committee process called Return on Science to allocate capital from the University of Auckland Inventors Fund. In 2016 UniServices added members from the student community and their successful contribution led to the formation of the nationwide Momentum Investment Committees that allocates capital to student start-ups. What has been surprising has been the development of a wave of not just student entrepreneurs but also now a student network of mentors, capital allocators and directors. To date the committees have seen over 70 student projects and by the end of 2020 will be based in all main centres in New Zealand. Students, particularly those choosing their PhDs are looking for more than just academic training. Another surprise is how this attitude has become contagious.

The student community (post undergraduate and postgraduate) engagement with these programmes has shifted academic’s views of the opportunities beyond teaching and publishing as ways of creating impact from their research.

The new overarching strategy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Auckland is being finalised and will form the foundation from which to achieve audacious goals for growing the capability and potential of aspiring entrepreneurs.

In the immediate future, the University will continue to pursue its ambition to have 10% of students involved in the CIE. It’s also broadening its scope to include work within curricular as well as extra-curricular programmes. The Centre recently launched the Hynds Entrepreneurial Fellows Programme to embed innovation and entrepreneurship within curricula across the University. This programme will begin in earnest in 2020. UniServices commercialisation strategic ambitions for 2019 – 2023 includes a 2.5 x return on investment, a 15-18% internal rate of return, creating 20 start-ups per annum and 1-2 exits per annum, doubling the size of investment committee Return on Science and increasing the size of the inventors fund to $50m.

Beyond commercial goals, the evolution of the University’s entrepreneurship strategy will also be impacted by the changing interests and motivations of the current generation who are increasingly aware and responsive to the environmental and social perils that the world faces. We have seen an increasing interest from students in creating social ventures. The University of Auckland has demonstrated subject knowledge and capability in this area (it was recently ranked as number one in the THE University Impact Rankings). As such, it is our responsibility and privilege to help empower our students to tackle the Sustainability Development Goals through the lens of entrepreneurship.