Oct. 31 (NBD) -- "I see technology as an enabler. This is what some people say that technology is going to be deterministic, and it's gonna determine the future," Nick Gerritsen, who advised New Zealand's Prime Minister and is now consulting to the country's key strategic government agencies around the global GovTech opportunity, told NBD in an exclusive interview before the opening of a Startup Grind event last Friday, which is also a part of the 2017 New Zealand Month.

Nick Gerritsen (photo/NBD)

China and New Zealand see huge potention for cooperation 

Gerritsen said that there's very interesting opportunity for engagement and collaboration around technology innovation.

Innovation is what a country needs to do if it wants to stimulate the economy. "The ability to go into technology also provides an opportunity to grow global footprint," he said.

According to him, New Zealand is now focusing on three priority areas: ICT, biotic sciences, and creative industries.

Gerritsen said that the country is starting to broaden the areas even further, and what he is interested in doing right now is trying to achieve some sort of collaboration between China and New Zealand.

He expects the co-relationship between China and New Zealand to help countries solve problems such as climate change, water quality, food safety, infrastructure and city planning.

In his mind, China and New Zealand can complement each other in innovation. "If we build a solution that solves problems in China, it's good, and if China can build a solution to solve problems in New Zealand, that's good. It's like mutual business opportunity around," he told NBD.

IoT embraces promising future

Also as a catalyst and high-impact entrepreneur in New Zealand, Gerritsen, himself tends to focus on technologies and opportunities that have the ability to create global impact, such as planet issues and data issues. 

"The size and scale of China presents a very interesting opportunity to make bigger impact," he said.

IoT (Internet of Things) is one of the domains that Gerritsen is currently investing in. 

He stated that IoT is going to be one of those big niche sectors, and it is potentially very disruptive, mainly because it produces the ability to give low data rate solutions into the market in a broad way. 

"The smart way of looking at the future has to be through the perspective of data capture and IoT is a very elegant way to collect a large scale of data capture," he added. "IoT is small data and lots of small data transit into big data. With big data, you can see patterns and you can analyze them, then you can create solutions and real change."

Taking a real-time water quality monitoring project as an example, Gerritsen demonstrated the value of IoT.  

He said that putting sensors in the river to get real-time data every 15 seconds offers them amazing data assets, so they can see the pattern in the data assets received and other impacts on the upper stream. 

He also noted that IoT provides data needed for the development of AI.

Bubble exists in AI sector

The issue with AI is people want it to assist them in being more efficient, in having more time and in creating more value, Gerritsen said. 

When asked whether there is bubble in the AI sector, he gave NBD a positive answer.

"If you look at the general technology development curve, most of the time it starts off as a bubble, and then it approaches to the market, and it eases out. So there are some arguments to say that bubble is an important part of raising capital, because at that point, people bet to take really hard, big risk, so there's potentially a purpose and value from that bubble. But obviously, you have to be keen to get proper pricing." 

Regarding whether he has plans to invest in Chinese startups, he said that they are actually interested in initiating an exchange between China and New Zealand. 

"For example, there are New Zealand companies or startups that have an interest in China. If we can create a situation they'll like to come up, for example, to Chengdu to learn about how they should build a business in China while sitting in New Zealand without, you know, direct market engagement, that's very valuable. And vice versa, for Chinese startups coming down to New Zealand to learn a little about how to deal, you know, I guess with the western way, thinking and stuff like that, in a very safe and trusted environment."

Conversational AI (photo/NBD)

Tips for investors

As for his view of investment, he said, “The sort of investment cycle starts to happen once you have an idea about what opportunity there is, whether they fit into problems or areas of interests under considerations, so I think certainly this is gonna be an interesting investment between both countries and two ways of view."

What he values the most when investing in a startup is how the startup differs from others, has it developed a product, how far along the line in terms of having the product really go to the market, have it proven that the customer wants to buy its products. 

To investors, he strongly advised that they should invest in someone who they believe is targeted and committed, and put money across the whole portfolio. 

At the end of the interview, Gerritsen, who is also known as an intellectual property attorney in New Zealand, shared with NBD his views about IP protection. 

He considers IP as the global language and value. 

"Developing technology (with IP) means you can have a conversation globally."

He suggested Chinese companies have an IP landscape first. "What are you trying to do? How do you try to do it? Is it unique? Is that uniqueness going to provide you with the business value that can be translated into success? If you do believe these position and your ideas, it's important to try to lock down that defeats of position and then find some form of formal IP protection."

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn