Business leaders and academics connect for Asia-Pacific opportunities at The Context: Asia-Pacific Summit

The Centres of Asia-Pacific Excellence’s (CAPEs’) first Summit for businesses and academics will look at how New Zealand businesses can navigate current challenges while keeping an eye on their Asia-Pacific future.

The Summit, to be held at the Auckland University Business School and online on Tuesday, 30 August, aims to highlight the ecosystems that support New Zealand businesses in an Asia-Pacific context, and bring together people with similar challenges and aspirations, so they can build connections and share solutions.

“We’re excited to bring leading academics together with businesses which are going through those challenges, but are also heading in great directions in Asia-Pacific markets,” says Angela Davis, the CAPEs Director – Strategy.

While the Summit speakers are from diverse fields, all share one thing in common: a passion for building New Zealand’s business ecosystems, especially for small, medium and Māori businesses, and those seeking to venture offshore.

Katy Bluett, Establishment Director of Future Food Aotearoa, a founders’ movement which aims to accelerate the growth and impact of future food and foodtech businesses, will be a keynote speaker. She is looking forward to talking about the group’s vision for the future.

“Now is the time to define a food strategy that builds on our farming legacy and seeds new business models and innovation opportunities fit for the future. The Asia Pacific region will be key to bringing this to life,” says Bluett.

Business speakers from the digital sphere will share their stories about how they have built partnerships and capabilities in the Asia-Pacific context. These include Mario Wynands, Managing Director of PikPok, which has recently acquired Colombian video development studio Wizard Fun Factory, and Potaua Biasiny-Tule, Co-Founder of Digital Natives Academy.

The Summit will draw on New Zealand’s wealth of outstanding business academics whose research focuses on understanding and developing the capabilities of New Zealand’s businesses as they internationalise, and exploring their commonalities with business communities in Asia and Latin America.

Among the Summit academic speakers is Dr Jason Mika, who has researched extensively on Māori entrepreneurial ecosystems, as well as entrepreneurialism among Chile’s Mapuche business communities. Speaker Dr Tanya Jurado, an expert in SME support systems, has conducted similar research comparing the experiences of New Zealand SME service exporters with their Chilean and Colombian counterparts. She will speak about her findings on the capabilities that have driven successful internationalisation by SMEs.

“Connecting with other business people and those in the small business ecosystem is really important at this time when we have a lot of challenges and a changing business landscape. It’s a great opportunity to talk about the capabilities we need and how different people are developing them,” says Dr Jurado.

The CAPEs run a number of popular business and education programmes and webinars throughout the year, covering markets in North Asia, South-East Asia and Latin America. The Summit will bring together experts from Asia-Pacific markets and a range of disciplines for a one-stop look at the big picture as well as practical tips.  Break-out sessions will cover topics such as marketing and consumer engagement, talent and cultural intelligence, and digital exports.

More information can be found at the Summit website, https://cape.org.nz/summit/ where you can register to attend either in person or online. Online attendance is free, in-person attendance is $250 with an early bird registration of $125 available until Friday, 12 August.