Grey Lynn 2030 Transition Community

Unitec hosts Forum for the Future on the New Zealand Economy

Award winning business journalist and adjunct Professor at Unitec’s Department of Management and Marketing, Rod Oram will lead a series of panel discussions on the future of the New Zealand economy at Unitec during October.

The three-evening series is the inaugural programme in The Unitec Forum for the Future which has been established to help stimulate discussion about New Zealand’s opportunities and challenges in the global economy.

Rod Oram and his colleagues at Unitec’s Department of Management and Marketing have identified a range of major topics for the Forum. Each topic will be tackled in a series of three 90-minute panel-style discussions bringing together sector leaders, academics, students and the public.

The first series will run October 8, 15 and 22 from 6.30pm- 8.00pm at Unitec’s Mount Albert campus in Auckland. It will examine the National-led government’s goal of having the New Zealand economy catch up with Australia’s by 2025. It has formed a task force, led by Don Brash, the former Reserve Bank Governor and National party leader, to advise it. The Unitec Forum for the Future will stimulate thinking on how the goal can be reached.

The October 8 session will consider the 2025 challenge – how big is the task and how will we do it? The two guest speakers will be Dr Rick Boven, director of the New Zealand Institute, and David Caygill, a member of the 2025 taskforce, chairman of the Electricity Commission and a former Labour cabinet minister.

The October 15 session will consider the Dairy sector’s strategic response; and the October 22 session will explore the Tourism sector’s strategic response.

Associate Professor and Head of Unitec’s Department of Management and Marketing, Robert Davis says, “The Forum is a great opportunity for our students, guests and the live audience to engage in a broader discussion about the role of enterprise in wider New Zealand society.”

“Each programme will be filmed and edited for the web by students from Unitec’s Department of Screen and Performing Arts and made available on the Unitec website and a dedicated blog to allow for wider debate on the issues,” says Davis.

The Unitec Forum for the Future plans to run at least two such programmes a year.

For further information or interviews with Rod Oram or Robert Davis please contact: Andrea Rush on email: andrea@360 connect.co.nz, DDI 09 918-7712 or mobile 021 962 349

Multiple crises — financial,economic and environmental – are
triggering big structural shifts in business, society and politics
around the world. Policymakers and corporates are scrambling
to understand the changes and respond to them in effective and
timely ways. Potentially, some of these shifts could be very beneficial
to New Zealand. If we figure out how to play to them, we could earn
a bigger, more sustainable livingin the world economy. Conversely,
if we chose to ignore them, we’ll be in deep trouble.

Rod Oram has more than 30 years’ experience as an international financial journalist. He has worked in Europe and North America for leading publications such as the Financial Times of London. His FT career spanned 18 years (1979-1997) as an editor and writer based in London and New York. Rod has also traveled extensively in North America, Europe
and Asia.Rod and his family emigrated from the UK to New Zealand in 1997. He is currently acolumnist for the Sunday Star-Times; a regular broadcaster on radio and television; and a frequent public speaker on business and economic issues. He was Editor of the Business Herald section of the New Zealand Herald, 1997-2000. Rod is an Adjunct Professor in Business School at Unitec, Auckland’s technology tertiary institution, and he has contributed to several regional economic development
projects.

At the 2006 Westpac Business & Financial Journalism Awards, Rod won the Reporting on Corporate Responsibility, Sustainability or Community Engagement category.

Penguin recently published Rod’s book about the New Zealand economy, Reinventing Paradise. It’s available in bookstores nationwide in New Zealand

Where Red Lecture Theatre Building 180 – B001 Unitec New Zealand
Entry 4, Carrington Road, Mt Albert, Auckland
When 28 April 2009
Time 6 – 7:30pm (refreshments will follow after the lecture)
Phone +09 815 4321 ext 7044
Email arodgers@unitec.ac.nz