More than 140 Kiwi entrepreneurs and organisations have come together to bring forward a manifesto to the government, calling for the country to be more entrepreneurial.
They are warning the New Zealand government that the lack of resources and insufficient policies for small-to-medium (SME) entrepreneurs will leave the country behind economically.
Global Entrepreneurship Network’s (GEN) New Zealand chapter represents more than 140 organisations, entrepreneurs, incubators and accelerators, support organisations and investors.
They have collaborated to produce a manifesto they believe will make entrepreneurship easier and more effective, and they are asking both local and central government politicians to support it.
Chair of the New Zealand chapter of GEN, Dave Moskovitz, is both an entrepreneur and angel investor, and he is seeing first-hand what the country is missing out on.
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“We need to make New Zealand more entrepreneurial and level up our entrepreneurial skills so that we can compete on the world stage and provide that intergenerational social and economic prosperity,” Moskovitz says.
In order to create a diverse and more resilient foundation for intergenerational economic and social success, Moskovitz adds that entrepreneurs and the government need to collaborate.
GEN supports connecting entrepreneurs with the people and resources that are essential to thrive on both a national and global level but for the Kiwi chapter, there is a large gap in lacking resources.
The manifesto brought forward to the government highlights policymaking, support and education for entrepreneurs, commercialisation of research, attracting talented entrepreneurs, enhancing and improving the ecosystem on the global stage.
“We would like people who are in, and who interact with, the entrepreneurial ecosystem, to support our key messages and initiatives and create a more entrepreneurial Aotearoa,” Moskovitz says, adding that we need to become an “innovation nation”.
