Category Archives: New Zealand

April 4, 2012

Ben Reid

In General, New Zealand, Software Business

Christchurch EPIC Campus gets a green light – Memia a founding tenant

It was with great pride that Memia yesterday attended the official launch of the EPIC (Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus) development in Christchurch. After over a year of exceptionally hard work by EPIC co-founders Colin Andersen and Wil McLellan, which from the sounds of it has involved herding cats and pushing boulders uphill, the first stage of the EPIC project, the “Sanctuary” building, was announced in full fanfare. Memia is one of the 17 earthquake-displaced technology businesses who form the founding tenant group. The building will be open in Q4 of 2012, and believe me it will be great to have a permanent city-centre office again after the disruption of 2010-2011. (See my earlier blog post for details of our previous offices).

Yesterday tenants, sponsors and others associated with the project were joined by worthies including “Super” Minister for Science and Innovation Steven Joyce and Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker. To add a touch of comedy, we were all required to wear hard hats and hi-vis vests, even though the site is currently totally cleared. Perhaps they were expecting that the sky would fall in…

Some news coverage here:

IT Hub Set for Central Christchurch (Stuff.co.nz)

Government commits $1.8M to Christchurch Tech Hub (Idealog)

Christchurch IT Hub Welcome Boost (Voxy)

IT Technology Hub for Christchurch (NZ Herald) (Video)

Mr Joyce performed a credible job driving a digger to “break the ground”. (there are plenty of jobs going in the Christchurch reconstruction if he ever feels like a change of career…). Now it’s over to construction subcontractor Timbercore to build the Sanctuary building in record time. All going well, we move in during August.

Once again congratulations to Colin, Wil, and thanks to all of the public sector agencies (MSI, NZTE, CCC) and sponsors (BNZ) and advisors (too many to mention) who have made this happen.

We now have the tangible opportunity to confidently grow the Canterbury tech sector and create an international-level Technology and Innovation Precinct in the new Christchurch, to grow our nascent tech industry and, equally importantly, attract in more talent and venture capital. A great day for Canterbury’s future.

March 26, 2012

Ben Reid

In General, New Zealand

RIP Paul Callaghan – watch him once again at StrategyNZ 2011

Sad to hear over the weekend that Sir Paul Callaghan, 2011 New Zealander of the Year, world class scientist and advocate of a smarter New Zealand, lost his long battle against cancer. Click here to read his obituary on Stuff.co.nz.

If you haven’t watched his talk from last year’s StrategyNZ conference, take this opportunity to watch him again. Inspiring, factual and irreverent – a great presentation.

December 22, 2011

Ben Reid

In General, New Zealand

Comments Off

Happy holidays! Memia’s Pick of 2011

To all of our customers, partners and friends: Best wishes for a relaxing and restorative summer break, look forward to seeing you again in 2012.

I’d just like to say thank you to all of Memia’s customers, partners and friends for your support during 2011 – we’re now well over the earthquakes here in Canterbury and I think we’re all now looking forward to what’s shaping up to be an exciting and prosperous 2012.

In particular, Memia is one of the first round of tenants in the EPIC Sanctuary building, due to be completed mid-year. After losing our lovely old offices in Cashel Mall due to the earthquake (see the transformation below), we’re looking forward to re-establishing ourselves in the CBD next year.

107 Cashel Mall - Old Weekly Press Building - Before the Earthquake

107 Cashel Mall - 22 Feb 2011

107 Cashel Mall - Now

(photo courtesy Dean Norrie
http://www.starphotographers.net)

Meanwhile, here are just a few of my picks for the best media of 2011. With an eye on the future, naturally. Enjoy.

Most thought-provoking film

“Transcendent Man” by Barry Ptolemy – Fascinating full-length documentary on Futurist Ray Kurzweil and his theory of technological acceleration leading to the Singularity.

Best non-fiction books

Steve Jobs’ death in October was the defining event in the technology industry in 2011. If you haven’t already read this rapidly-published biography, then it’s a recommended read, chronicling the earliest days of Apple and painting Jobs in a warts-and-all profile which is not always flattering.

James Gardner: The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos: Although not written in the easiest style, Gardner introduces his theory of the “Selfish Biocosm” which says that intelligence is not some cosmic accident, but that intelligence and life are explicitly coded into the physical laws and constants of the universe. Furthermore, universes beget other universes in some kind of meta-Darwinian evolution. Mind expanding cosmology.

Best science-fiction books

Charles Stross – Rule 34 Probably my favourite sci-fi author currently writing, this book channels Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus forward to the near future with a police procedural set in 2020s Edinburgh. As with a lot of Stross’ work, he has vividly imagined a future influenced by today’s emerging technologies (3D printing, augmented reality, artificial intelligence…), and there are more new ideas in the first chapter than you usually find in any other book. Plus, written with a dark but very funny sense of humour throughout. Not to everyone’s taste, but highly recommended.

Peter F Hamilton – Void Trilogy – I spent quite a bit of time in 2011 reading through the 2000 pages or so of this trilogy, and found it difficult to put down once I was going. Set thousands of years in the future, Peter Hamilton weaves together multiple strands of plot centred around the “Void” in the centre of our galaxy which is gradually consuming the whole galaxy from within. Cleverly, he even manages to encapsulate a medievalist fantasy novella within the complex plotlines. Lots of suspension of disbelief required for “hard” sci-fi enthusiasts for the more “imaginative” physical possibilities (commuting on trains via wormhole…? Hmm) but good fun.

Most insane pastime

Finally, here is a video of an activity which I will NOT be trying out in a hurry. Absolutely. Insane.

Happy Christmas!

November 14, 2011

Ben Reid

In Cloud and SaaS, General, Google Apps, New Zealand

Comments Off

Memia Google Apps Practice moves to Arise Business Solutions

We’re excited to announce that Memia’s Google Apps practice is making the transition to a new company, Arise Business Solutions Ltd. Memia’s Google Apps practice, which has been built up since 2009 and serves customers throughout Canterbury and the South Island of New Zealand, will now be served by a dedicated team of certified Google Apps expert practitioners led by Arise Managing Director Rob Laidlaw. Ben Reid from Memia will continue to serve as a director on the Arise Board.

Memia’s existing Google Apps customers will experience a seamless transition to the new arrangements, but with enhanced levels of service and support. Arise provides specialist consulting, implementation, support and training services for a growing number of best-of-breed Cloud Business Solutions, including Google Apps, WorkflowMax and Zoho. Arise also helps businesses to migrate their IT off physical servers and into the cloud to provide more secure, more reliable and less expensive solutions.

Why “Arise”?
We chose the name “Arise” because we help our customers to move their IT UP into the cloud, free from the headaches of complex and costly on-premise IT. We also wanted to express our optimism that our home city of Christchurch will “Arise” from the 2010-2011 earthquakes, and we see smarter IT being a big part of the successful rebuilding of the city.

Meanwhile Memia will continue to focus on providing strategic technology and architecture consulting services to software companies, startups and IT organisations throughout New Zealand and beyond.

For more information, see the Arise Business Solutions website: http://arisesolutions.co.nz or contact Rob Laidlaw: rob.laidlaw@arisesolutions.co.nz.