Such was the marvellous quotage from last night’s first 7X7 lecture. Hosted by Rod Oram, ‘Seven Foundations’ included a mix of economists, scientists and journo’s discussing where we are as a nation, and where they believe we should be moving to.
I heard once that if you laid all of the economists in the world end to end, you still wouldn’t reach a conclusion. This seemed to apply to David Skilling and Brian Easton who were in agreement about our position in the OECD rankings (could do better), and our ambivalence to change our situation (we are relatively wealthy, happy and free). They wanted a big idea, a strategy, a plan. And future lectures include ‘Seven Trailblazers, Seven Directions, Seven Connections and Seven Imaginations. So we are bound to get something like a plan from that little lot.
The scientists offered ideas around how to improve economic growth through research and development. We have such a disproportionate level of science graduates, compared to that of say, media studies that we need a growth plan to reatin our grads, and increase the number entering post-graduate research. We need to make science important. And the government has stepped up to this in the form of the Fast Forward innovation fund: a capital investment of $700 million over 10-15 years. In partnership with industry, the fund aims to transform pastoral and food industries by lifting their competitive advantage. Such as biomimicry (where design rules from nature are replicated) which been used in North Canterbury by planting a specific flower between rows of grape vines to aid growth.
It was an uplifting, engaging event on a wet and cold welly night. But we need to be having this conversation nationally. It’s time for the owners of our media to step up and provide the platform for us to be a part of the discussion. We are in an election year: where is the inspirational leadership to respond to our questions? I am bored of Winston. More bored of Sean Plunkett talking to Winston. I have no idea what (if anything) John Key stands for. Labour have a massive task ahead to publicise the good work they have done, but also to provide the innovation and the big ideas to enable us to be spectacular. Game on!
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