2020: The Year Forever Etched into History
At the end of each year, I always spend some time reflecting on what we have achieved and how it tracked to our strategic and operational goals. This year as I prepared to write this article, my first thought was that it feels like a lifetime since December 2019. When I think back to that time, it seems like a completely different world to the one I live in now. And it is. This year has been long and arduous — particularly mentally. Mental exhaustion is a common theme amongst everyone I know — it has been a tough year. But we need to keep reminding ourselves that we are living through an historical event — a one in 100+ year event. 2020 will be a year that will be noted in the history books centuries from now, simply for being a pandemic year. 2020 has been far from a typical year.
When I peer through the fog of mental exhaustion and sit back and reflect on what have we achieved this year — I realise that this year has been the best year yet for ThincLab. This was a startling thought. Why has this year been so good? Quite simply, a crisis helps focus a business or entity on what really matters. It enables you to forget all those distracting extra things you could do and pushes you to identify what is actually important. A crisis helps you work out your entity’s purpose in the world, what you want to achieve and probably most importantly, what opportunities are there now, that were not there before?
At ThincLab, we began the year excited about our new partnership with the University of Adelaide’s global ThincLab network. This partnership connects us closely to sister incubators in Adelaide, Singapore and France, which means that we can connect our companies to mentors and investors across the globe. Once our borders are open, we will be able to join the ThincLab company tours to Singapore and France, where our companies will be able to connect with mentors and investors from Asian and the EU.
When the lockdown hit, it was heartening to see how all of our ThincLab mentors came together to provide much needed business support to our companies. I am proud of the way our mentors worked tirelessly with our companies to help them navigate the unprecedented uncertainty that came with the first lockdown. Many of our companies were able to embrace the opportunity that arose due to COVID-19, and they have pivoted and are
now more successful than ever before.
Another significant milestone this year was the three-way partnership between ChristchurchNZ, Te Ōhaka and ThincLab to provide a city-wide approach to growing more high-value companies and jobs in Ōtautahi Christchurch. This initiative ensures that high growth startups are supported from an early stage through to when they are more established companies. Under this agreement, ThincLab will provide dedicated, focused business support to later-stage startups. We are excited about this initiative and are looking forward to seeing how this will transform our innovation ecosystem.
Looking forward to 2021, we have a number of exciting initiatives on the horizon. Firstly, we are working with Ministry of Awesome to deliver the Start Me Up programme for the Ministry of Social Development and ChristchurchNZ. This initiative is specifically designed for people who are currently unemployed but who have a desire to start a business. We are
excited to be able to contribute to this and to be able to make a real difference to the livelihoods of many people. In conjunction, with B.linc at Lincoln University, we are also running the Food, Fibre and Agritech Supernode Challenge. This Challenge has a large cash prize pool with more than $130,000 on offer. There are two entry streams — research and enterprise to engage entries from businesses, scientists and academics. The Challenge is looking for new innovations that will generate value-added, high-impact food, fibre or agriculture products or assist on-farm automation and decision making that mitigates environmental impacts; or reduces the cost of production; or captures value-added provenance and credence stories of our products. We want solutions that have the potential for commercial success on a global scale while also delivering positive environmental outcomes. This Challenge is sponsored by ChristchurchNZ, KiwiNet, AgResearch and the Canterbury Mayoral Forum.
Next year we will continue to grow ThincLab and its network across the globe. We have a great team of mentors who are keen to accelerate the growth of businesses in Christchurch. If you have a business that is looking to expand internationally or enter into new markets, we can provide dedicated focus business support — please get in touch at info@thinclab.co.nz.
Finally, we would like to thank our lead sponsors, ChristchurchNZ and Callaghan Innovation. Without their generosity, we would not be able to provide focused business support to the range and number of businesses that we do.
I hope you all have a relaxing holiday break and come back ready to embrace 2021.
Rachel Wright
Director ThincLab and University of Canterbury Centre for Entrepreneurship
