MESA commercialisation portfolio - Annual Report 2023

15 April, 2024

Sam Harris and Daniel Mak

We've begun deploying two MESA commercialisation representatives for two years each, and this year Daniel Mak (Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury) and Sam Harris (Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo University of Otago) have provided excellent Commercialisation and Industry Engagement (CIE) support for MacDiarmid Institute students.

The large volume of activities undertaken benefitted from their combined organisational and management skills. They have been instrumental in supporting the development and delivery of our CRISP workshops (with help from Brooke Matthews on the MESA committee) and a series of industry site visits. Site visits were hosted at Christchurch start-ups Dawn Aerospace, Precision Chroma, and Zincovery. These visits helped MacDiarmid Institute students see the potential career paths in deep tech and meet some of the entrepreneurs chasing global ambitions from New Zealand.

Daniel, Sam and the MESA Committee arranged the annual MESA bootcamp with invited speaker Jonathan Good, CEO of Scentian Bio, who gave a talk on his career path and the lessons he learnt. Daniel and Sam also represented the MacDiarmid Institute student group at our TechWeek events in Auckland and Palmerston North and the annual KiwiNet Awards in Auckland.

Daniel and Sam would like to thank everyone who gave up their time to make 2023 an outstanding year for MESA's CIE efforts. For 2024, we welcome Aston Pearcy to the junior CIE representative role, as Sam moves to the senior role and Daniel steps down to complete his studies and work on a start-up he is founding.

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