 Kia ora kato, no mai hari mai, and welcome to today's session. So, we're going through a series. It's a virtual regional series for New Zealand, and we've got a lot of the economic development agencies and the likes that are presenting to you throughout the series. And today we're going to be hearing from Tuwaka, and Tuwaka is based in Hamilton, and Rosie and the team are going to take you through their presentation today. What you will hope to learn from today's session is, you know, the general demographics and statistics of the region, what sectors the region sees as opportunities and have resources to build on. You'll hear about case studies, perhaps, or projects that are current in the region, and you're also going to have a couple of special guests here today from, you've got the creative and tourism. So, it's going to be a really fascinating session. So, I'm looking forward to it, so I hope you all are too. Over to you, Rosie. Wonderful. Thank you, Michelle. Let me know once that screen sharing is working for you all. Is that on screen? Wonderful. Inga mana, inga reo, inga iwi, e raurangatira ma, te nā koutou, te nā koutou, te nā tātou katoa. Hello and a very warm welcome to you all from the Waikato region. I'm Rosie Sprague, the Industry and Sector Development Manager for Te Waka, the Waikato Region's Economic Development Agency. It is our absolute pleasure to be hosting this session today and to introduce you to the Waikato Region. Hopefully, tempt some of you to consider choosing the Waikato Region as you make your plans to come to Aotearoa, New Zealand, or for those of you that may already be in the country to consider visiting or locating yourselves here in the future. Today you will be hearing from a range of speakers from the Waikato Region. I'll be kicking us off with a general overview of the region and then we'll be hearing from Amber Dowty from Hamilton and Waikato Tourism and then Jeremy Mail from Creative Waikato, who will be sharing more about life in the Waikato and all the great things that you can do here. We'll also be hearing, hopefully she can join later on, from Cheryl Reynolds, one of the EHF fellows who will be talking about her experience of living and working in the Waikato Region. I'll then close us off and open up for any questions from those of you who are here in person today. Before I kick off in my sales pitch of the Waikato Region, I just wanted to briefly introduce you to Tewaka, the Economic Development Agency for the Waikato. We exist to lift the economic performance across the Waikato Region and ultimately to improve the wellbeing of our people and communities. We do this through data and insights, advocacy, connection and facilitation. We provide inspiration to informed decision-making. We advocate for our region and we take a stand on issues that matter and we celebrate what makes our region great. We're well connected and we bring people and opportunities together and we partner with others to facilitate projects and initiatives that benefit the Waikato economy. Through all this, we hope to help people make smarter decisions that benefit our region, attract smart investments to the region, attract and build and retain great talent in the region and attract and grow great businesses in the Waikato. So that's a very quick introduction to Tewaka. Now it's time to learn about the Waikato Region, starting with a video that tells you our region's story. The river of time flows strongly. Through a place of new opportunities and powerful possibilities. From the arrival of the first waka, bold thinkers have seen the potential in this lush land and prime location. Where land and sea provide and nature's kaleidoscope inspires our care of people and place. This is a place to dive in, to discover, to explore. We're mahi ate mahi. Getting the job done is in our DNA. Working together, working smarter and giving it everything we've got. This is a place that grows and celebrates success by backing those who actively shape the world, working in harmony with the land and harnessing the power of the earth with ingenuity and teamwork, making, creating and growing. To share here at home and with the world, a place where food for thought is abundant, where minds can be nourished and grown, a place where life is good, whether you've been here a while or just starting out and where friendships are grown with open hearts and open places. This is our Turangawaewae, the place where we stand in our vibrant towns and a smart, growing city, a powerful incubator for you thinking, high performance and a genuinely rewarding lifestyle. This is our place. This is your place. The beating heart of New Zealand. Our home. The mighty Waikato. E mihi ana ki na tohu honihe o ngā iwi o Waikato e nohon nei mā tau. Tēnā koutou. In addition, our national bodies are a place of department and we hear the word Ngati ή Banatanga hō, Backwood iatua the region by acknowledging many iwi groups that sit right across Maori tribal groups to the north, to the east and Moneyupoto and Tuwharetoa to the south. kaitiaki o garians within the Waikato region. From the Bombay Hills and Port Waikato in the north, down to the Kaimai Ranges and Mount Ruapehu in the south, and from Morco on the west coast across to the Coromandel Peninsula in the east, the Waikato region is very large and mighty with 10% of Aotearoa's New Zealand's population, the longest river and largest lake in the country and the country's most important geothermal systems. The Waikato is at the centre of a three region area where half of New Zealanders live and two-thirds of recent population growth has occurred. Population, employment and business growth in the Waikato region is strong and well ahead of the New Zealand average. We're at the heart of the golden triangle that economic zone encompassing Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga, and that generates over half of Aotearoa New Zealand's GDP. Our population is also young and diverse. Over a quarter of the population in the Waikato is of Māori descent and one in five in our region were born overseas. Our region is made up of 10 districts in a large area and each of those districts have their own unique strengths and significant industries and innovative local businesses. So to help take us through the region, we've grouped these districts into four zones and we'll take you on a quick tour of the region to learn about the key sectors and industries in each of those parts of the Waikato. So we'll start in the North East with Thames Coromandel, Hauraki and the Matamata Piaquod districts. So Thames Coromandel to the North East is renowned for its natural beauty, rural farmland, misty rainforests and pristine golden beaches. Hauraki just south of Thames Coromandel is home to many natural, cultural and historical landmarks, including New Zealand's largest gold mine. Matamata Piaquod lies in the heart of the Waikato and is well known for its dairy farming, thoroughbred racing industry and is the home of Hobbiton. In addition to the beautiful white-seamed beaches, this part of the Waikato is known for tourism, mining, agriculture, aquaculture and is the home of one of our leading innovators in the aquaculture space, AgriSea, which is New Zealand's largest investor in research for biological farm inputs and marine algae ecosystems. So around 20% of the Waikato's population and businesses are based in this eastern zone. Moving more centrally, the central zone is made up of the Waikato, Hamilton and Waipa districts. And this is where much of the region's growth has occurred and it's expected to continue growing very strongly into the future. So the Waikato district to the North is directly on the border with Auckland and it's home to significant environmental infrastructure and community resources and that's also the home of the Kingitanga, the Māori King movement. It's in my hometown, Naroaia, just down the road from where I am right now. And the Waikato district is also home to the world famous surf breaks at Raglan on the West Coast with its wild and beautiful black-seamed beaches. Hamilton in the centre is our largest city in the Waikato region with just under 180,000 residents. It's a well-connected, welcoming and diverse place. It reflects our identity, it promotes creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship and celebrates our connection to the river, which runs right through the city. Many of the Waikato's largest businesses are headquartered in Hamilton. And the Waipa district lies just south of Hamilton. I think about half the Te Waka team lives in the Waipa district. There's significant pastoral farming, thoroughbred horse studs and fruit production. The Waipa district includes very popular and growing boutique settlements like Cambridge, the town of trees and champions, which is known for its leafy streets, heritage buildings. And it's the home of many of our national sport organisations and high-performance sport centres, including site-clean triathlon, rowing, kayaking and canoeing. So this central part of the Waikato region is really known for technology businesses, particularly in agri-tech, as well as agricultural and food production, manufacturing and logistics. One of our largest and most successful agri-tech companies in the country, Gallagher Group, is headquartered in Hamilton City. That's the country's top performing exporter of high-tech, agricultural and security solutions. So in this central zone, you'll find about 60% of the Waikato's population and businesses. Then moving south into the southern zone, which has the South Waikato Otorohanga and Waitomu districts. The South Waikato district really showcases natural beauty, easy-going lifestyle, beautiful lakes, rolling green hills, forests and not a single traffic light. Otorohanga is proud to be the Kiwiana capital of New Zealand and it's home to the world-famous Kiwi House and Native Bird Park. And Waitomu is of course known for the world-famous Waitomu caves, one of our most inspiring natural wonders. And the tourism team will be talking to you a bit more about that later on. This, I guess, southern zone of the Waikato region is obviously known for tourism, but also for its large forestry and associated processing industries, manufacturing and of course agriculture. It has really diverse productive farmland, extensive hill country, ocean beaches, native bush, river valleys and protected harbours. And you'll find about 10% of the Waikato's population and businesses in this southern zone. And finally, we have the Topol district right at the very south of our region and that's of course named and most known for the sparkling Lake Topol that lies right at the centre of this district. It's our great inland sea of New Zealand. If you travel around Topol, you'll find towering volcanoes in the Tongaredo National Park and the Thundering Hookah Falls. Topol's a community with a really strong sense of belonging, shared commitment to nurturing and growing the district for future generations. The key industries you'll find down here include the energy, tourism and dairy industries and also includes Meraka, which is an indigenous Māori dairy company which has one of the lowest dairy processing carbon footprints in the world. And again, around about 10% of the Waikato's population and businesses are based in the Topol district. So with such a large and diverse region with lots of different sectors and different parts of our region, it can be hard for us to think about which sectors do we prioritise to drive our future growth. And so recently we brought together a collective of regional leaders who've identified six key sectors that are, I guess, our key growth opportunities as a region, which I'll briefly talk through with you now. So first up, we have logistics and distribution. And this is a really key growth sector for the Waikato, really reflecting our position at that heart of that golden triangle with Auckland and Tauranga. There are really significant investment being made in distribution hubs like the Ruakura Inland Port that will really improve connections right across the upper North Island. And once that investment is complete, it will represent 10% of New Zealand's total industrial space at that port. As you've no doubt picked up from our regional tour, agriculture and food production is really critical and key in the Waikato region. Our economy's really founded on food production and 60% of the total exports from our region is from the dairy industry or related to dairy. The opportunity, though, for our region is to really grow into those new future areas, functional foods, nutraceuticals, precision fermentation, aquaculture. Those are real key growth opportunities for us, as well as looking at how do we improve the efficiency and the sustainability of how we use our land and the way that we produce food. Our region also has a really strong manufacturing base and that really builds off our strength in primary production. Manufacturing is our second largest industry and it employs about 10% of our workforce. Our leading manufacturing industries include dairy and meat products, fabricated metal, wood, transport equipment and paper products, so a real variety of different types of manufacturing. The opportunity for our region is to really accelerate the transition to more advanced manufacturing practices, the adoption of industry 4.0 and creation of new innovative manufacturing methods. Of course, we can't not talk about the tech sector. It's important to every region in the country and it's one of the fastest growing industries in the Waikato region. It's a really critical source of innovation that enables us to be competitive and resilient into the future. Where in our particular strengths are, we lead in artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning and that's been supported by the Artificial Intelligence Institute. That's housed at the University of Waikato, which is also home to New Zealand's most powerful supercomputer that's dedicated to machine learning. And of course, AgriTech is a really important part of our local tech sector. So, nearly 60% of all of New Zealand's AgriTech jobs are in the Waikato region and a really wide variety of types of AgriTech, specialising in animal management, farm IT tools, food processing technology, genetics, herd improvement, systems manufacturing, lots of other types of products and services relating to AgriTech. And we also of course host the Field Days, which is the largest AgriTech trade event in the southern hemisphere. And energy and sustainability is also a really key growth area for us. The Waikato region generates a lot of New Zealand's electricity supply, primarily through hydroelectric dams that sit along the Waikato River. But we're also home to the country's largest thermal power station, which is a significant contributor to carbon emissions for the country and obviously for our region. So, the opportunity is for us to accelerate investment in clean distributed renewable energy and green technology. So, with having a thermal power plant in our region, it does make the Waikato region one of the highest emitting regions in New Zealand and also because of our reliance on the agriculture industry and the strength of the transportation industry in our region. I think that really creates a massive opportunity for change makers like the Edmund Hillary Fellows to support the Waikato region on our journey towards better sustainability and decarbonisation as a high emitting region. And last but not least, the tourism sector. Like much of the country, our tourism sector was hit hard by New Zealand's COVID restrictions and so obviously there's now an opportunity for us to really rebuild the sector and we're looking to really focus on high value cultural event and adventure tourism. So, hopefully that's given you a good quick flavour of the key industries in the Waikato region. I'll now talk a little bit about living in the Waikato before handing over to some of our guest speakers. So, the Waikato region is really well located at the heart of the Upper North Island. So, it's a great home base for exploring the North Island. Life here is anything but boring. You could be spending your weekends dining at vibrant award-winning eateries, soaking up the sun and relaxing at one of our local beaches on either the east or the west coast. You can choose between golden or black sands. You can enjoy the outdoors, plenty of beautiful walks and activities to choose from. There are plenty of housing options, fantastic schooling and great career opportunities. It's a good move for families. So, whether your dream is to be in a city or find a community in a small town or really escape to the country, there are lots of options to build a great lifestyle in the Waikato. We've got excellent education options across all levels of learning from primary, intermediate, secondary through to tertiary, including a world-leading university. The University of Waikato was ranked 373rd in the world. There's 10 subjects that are in the top 200, and the Waikato Management School is part of an elite group of business schools that have earned triple crown status. The university also has New Zealand's only dedicated cybersecurity lab and the first master's degree in cybersecurity in New Zealand. And just this year, the university also launched a Bachelor of Climate Change, which is the first degree of its kind in the world. The Waikato is also home to two of our largest national tertiary education providers, Te Wananga o Aotearoa, which is a uniquely Māori education provider, and Te Pukinga, which is the newly formed entity that's bringing together vocational education providers from right across Aotearoa, New Zealand. And Wintek, the Waikato Institute of Technology, is one of the first vocational training providers that's been integrated into Te Pukinga. So, with the presence of such a wide range of top-class education providers, the pool of young talent in the Waikato region is really strong and it's really valued by our local employers. There are plenty of opportunities also for our regional workforce to continually learn and develop their talent. And when it comes to research and innovation, so in addition to being home to a really diverse range of innovative businesses, we also have five out of the seven National Crown Research Institutions that have a presence in the Waikato region and they're listed here. We're also home to KiwiNet, which is a globally unique research commercialisation organisation and it brings together 19 different research organisations from right across the country to virtually join forces and pool some of their funding so they can get the best out of their research discoveries and get them investor ready. So, the region, the Waikato region is a great base to engage with a lot of New Zealand's research community and to tap into some of their new discoveries and innovative thinking. So, that's more than enough for me for now. I'd now like to hand you over to Amber Dowty from Hamilton and Waikato Tourism and she'll be talking a bit more about life and the wide range of fun things to do in the region. I'm just going to hand control over to Amber now. Amber, the floor should be yours. Are you on mute, Amber, by chance? Yes, Amber, you're on mute. Rosie, maybe if you take control back so then maybe Amber can unmute herself. OK, I'll stop that. Can you find your unmute, Amber? Yes, sorry, I'm alive. I'll give control back to you. Thank you. Sorry, my little thing disappeared and then I couldn't unmute myself. O kiora tātou. O krongia, te maunga, ko Waikato, te awa, nō kiri, kiri, roa, aho, ko, ambu, tako, ingawa. Kiwt, everyone. I'm Amber from Hamilton Waikato Tourism. If you couldn't tell from my pepi ha, all of the locations I named are from the Waikato. So I'm born and bred here and Waikato is my home. So as Rosie mentioned, now my click is not working. I'll just let that and I'll just start talking. So as Rosie mentioned, our area of the Waikato is slightly different to... Oh, now my video is playing. Here we go. It's slightly different to the area that Tuwaka covers. So we do border Auckland and Hamilton as our main city, but we don't cover Coromandel and we don't cover Taupo. So our tourism remit is just a smidgy different. We're generally known for caves, waves and hobbit holes. So our rugged west coast of Raglan, the wonderful glowworms in Waitomor and the earth movie magic at Hobbiton and some other locations around the region as well. The longest river in New Zealand also passes through our region, starting in Topor and exiting at Port Waikato in the north. Our city of Hamilton is New Zealand's fourth largest city. We are also the fourth highest domestic spend in New Zealand. So we have a really strong visitor market in New Zealand. I'm looking for my next slide. This seems to be a bit of a lag. Here we go. I also apologise in advance, our office is based at the airport. So if you can hear a lovely plane arriving or departing, just to my left, I apologise for that in advance. So in Waitomor, the caves are about 30 million years old. There is probably 300 known caves in Waitomor, so more than just the one glowworm cave experience that we probably have all seen before. Waitomor is about an hour south of Hamilton and offers a range of soft adventure, abseiling, ziplining, jumping off waterfalls, floating in inner tubes of tyres. So there's a bit of something for everyone. You've probably seen the magical glowworm boat ride images wherever you are in the world. It's sort of a bucket list item. Waiting again for my next slide. Here we go. So as you can see, there's wet tours, dry tours, something for everyone. And it doesn't matter what time of the year, you attend these type of activities. The temperature in the caves is the same pretty much all year round about 13 degrees. There are about five main operators in Waitomor. They offer everything from large group tours to small boutique, 12-person tours, and then some really cool adventures like the abseil. You see there was about 100 metres into the valley of a cave. Tours range from a couple of hours to full day, if that's what you're after. And then we move over to our next hero, which is Hobbiton Movieset. Built as a permanent movie set in the region as an outcome of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit trilogies, the set, the tours of the set pass through about 42 Hobbit holes. They have different experiences. You can go on a second breakfast tour, which is the first tour of the day, which you're then treated to a second breakfast like a Hobbit, where you can eat all you'd like. There's also evening tours, where you get a tour of the set at night with lanterns. And then we move into Hamilton City, which is the hub for our region. We have a really eclectic restaurant cafe scene here. You could almost eat your way around the world just in one city. We're also, as a city, embracing the river and turning back to face the river in the past. We've sort of looked away from it. So, as you can see, Victoria on the river there is sort of turning back to the river and making that part of our city again. We also have a really vibrant art scene here, and I won't talk about that too much, as Jeremy will talk about that shortly. But we're really excited to see our regional theatre due to open in 2024, which will be a great addition to the city's art scene. Hamilton City is also, as I mentioned, the hub for the region. It has great shopping and retail. Most of our accommodation is based here. So, we like to think of it as that's your base for your stay in the Waikato, and then you move out to all the other regions. Hamilton Gardens is another jewel in our crown. It's a collection of about 20 themed gardens that tell the story of different civilizations throughout time. So, we like to think of it as a living museum rather than a collection of botanical gardens. So, here we've got the Indian Chabar Garden, the Surrealist Garden, at the bottom two images where everything is about five times the size. So, it's made to make you feel like you're Alice in Wonderland. And then the newest garden that's opened just last month was the Ancient Egyptian Garden. Despite all the research that was done, it's believed that the Ancient Egyptian Garden is the first one of its kind to be recreated. So, that's quite special for us. Hamilton Gardens is also home to Te Parapara, which is the only traditional Maori garden in New Zealand. As a region that you touched on before, Rosie, we've got quite a strong agricultural heritage here. And the outcome of that is we've got some great dairy products that come from that. So, duck island ice cream, award-winning cheese like maia. We really practical them home. We also have New Zealand's only organic commercial tea estate at Zeelong Tea Estate. We also have some really great We also have some really iconic coffee roasters and brewers such as Good George who started off as just something that a couple of mates thought would be cool to do. Hobbiton came along and said, hello, we would like to work with you. And Good George had to be borrow and steal every keg that they could to meet their first order. And that's how they got their big break. So, we're quite lucky that we've got some really local homegrown guys that are based here. Next slide. We're also probably one of the largest berry growing regions in New Zealand. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, any kind of berry that you can think of. We probably grow it here and most farms offer pick-your-own experiences. So, in the summertime, you can come along, pick as many strawberries or blueberries as you like. So, you get weighed and pay for them and then you also do what you like. We also have a lot of foodie events in the region that celebrate our local produce. So, farmers markets every week and both Hamilton and Cambridge. Kawhiukai Festival out on the West Coast really celebrates Kaimawana and their connection to the sea there. And Gorma and the Gardens happens every year where as a bunch of food trucks arrive at Hamilton Gardens on a Sunday night during summer where you can enjoy some local food. We're also home to lots of events here in the Waikato, both free and paid. So, lots of international sport, cricket, rugby. We're due to host the FIFA under-23 tournament next year. As Rosie mentioned, we also have failed days here, which is in summer this year for us. And Bloons over Waikato, which is our iconic potty balloon event that happens every March. As a region that is quite large and quite diverse, we have tonnes of nature experiences. So, this particular image is from the West Coast out at Raglan, so Kaia King and the Harbour. And then we have Sanctuary Mountain Mangatotiri, which has the largest, longest pest-proof fence in the world. So, it's the only ecological island on mainland New Zealand, which is home to lots of native wildlife, kiwi, kaka, tuatara. They are currently going through the process of fundraising to build a fence so that we can have kakapō. At this stage, there is no kakapō in the North Island. So, if we manage to get more fundraised enough money to build a kakapō-proof fence, we will be able to get them here, which will be really exciting for us. The team at Sanctuary Mountain have also just wrapping up a programme called Kiwis for Kiwi, where they released 500 kiwi onto the mountain over five years. So, that's a significant amount of kiwi for our breeding programmes. And the hope is that, in future, they'll be able to re-home some of those kiwi elsewhere. And on our west coast of Raglan, not only is it known for the longest left-hand surf break in the world, but it also has plenty of artisan producers. It is a hub for artists. There's a great collection out there, and I'm sure Jeremy can talk to that more. But there's a variety of experiences out there as well. So, surflessons, sunset cruises, climbing up waterfalls, which you can also do at night, and there's also glowworms out there. So, that's really exciting. We also have tons of walking and cycling trails in our region. So, our patch of the Waikato, that I referred to in the map earlier, is home to two of New Zealand's great rides, the timber trail and the Hauraki Rail Trail. We also have trails like the Waikato... Oh, I've changed. The Matiawa River Ride, which follows the river from Ngātawahia in the north down to Lake Keropetou in the south. We also have heaps of walking trails and waterfalls. So, lots of summit climbs, gentle walks along the river, any kind of walk that you could hope for. We are home to that. And we're also really family-friendly when my slide changes. So, we have heaps of activities for families, children young and old, indoor, outdoor. They could do all of their activities I've already talked about, but we also have things like Hamilton Zoo. We have Waikato Museum, which is not only a great showcase of local art, but also has dedicated children's exhibitions. We have alpaca farms and bowling. And I think that's pretty much... I've summed up the region in a nutshell really quickly. Wonderful. Thank you, Amber. I'm sorry the remote control didn't work perfectly well. Fingers crossed we can get it working for Jeremy. But hopefully that's given you all a good flavour of some of the awesome fun things there are to do in the Waikato region. So, now it's my pleasure to hand you over to Jeremy, who's the CEO of Creative Waikato or to talk more about the creative scene in our region. And I'll hand over control. Maybe try using a keyboard if you've got that Jeremy. It seems like it doesn't like the mouse, but fingers crossed a keyboard will work. We'll give it a try. Kia ora koutou koutou Jeremy. Tōku ingoa i whānau maiaho i kere-kere-dō. As mentioned, I'm the CEO of Creative Waikato. So Creative Waikato is a charitable organisation that works as a regional capability builder in the arts, culture and creative sector of the Waikato region, covering across the similar 10 districts to Te Waka. We've really kind of established our role as a kind of thought leader and system connector and strategic adviser working with artists and community organisations throughout the whole ecosystem of the Waikato region from flax routes, community activity, to commercial creative activity that exists within our region and extends out to kind of national and international acclaim. As a regional arts development agency, we serve communities through the provision of capability and capacity building services to strategically enhance and strengthen the value and impact of the arts, culture and creativity in our region. We support and develop and champion Waikato arts by understanding the unique needs of our bold and ambitious creative sector and seek to collaborate with national and regional organisations as well as with individuals, councils and communities to drive positive change, opportunity and well-being through diverse and transformative creative activity and that's very much what's at the heart of the arts and culture in the Waikato. It has a really strong connection to Te O Maori and really kind of interweaves how arts becomes a part of everyday life through kind of celebration, through kind of moments of understanding, through moments of connection. Oh, hopefully it's going to change for me. Oh, there we go. Our creative scene is really diverse. It happens in streets. It happens in theatres. It happens in galleries. We have performers who work across sector. We have a really great little touring community that happens throughout this thing. We have a really strong visual arts community and that happens both within Hamilton City and also more broadly. As Amber mentioned, there's a really strong community of visual artists in Raglan based around some gallery spaces there out at the Wharf in the Haud School Arts Centre as well as an arts studio tour that happens there once a year. We also have a really strong visual arts community largely centred around ceramics in the Coromandel with Driving Creek pottery and the work that Barry Brickle started. But throughout the region, we see a range of different things. We see a number of events that bring communities together. We see pathways for young people to have experiences performing on stages. We have a range of different performing arts venues, both small venues that exist in local small communities and enable the kind of creative well-being that occurs through being part of performances as well as through the kind of broader performing arts ecosystem that we have based in Kere-Kere-Roa that sees a kind of network of performing venues from community activity at Riverley Theatre to the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts at the University of Waikato to the Meteor Theatre to Clarence Street Theatre and also to the new Waikato Regional Theatre that will be built. But we also see activities like this one being the Sunset Symphony at the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival. Our connection to Te Amari is expressed through a really strong connection to Taunga Puro, to Kapa Haka, to weaving Raranga and other cult and carving art forms and we can see that through our public art. We can see that in our community venues and we can see that in the performances that take place and that being a really fundamental tool for the wellbeing of our region. It's also some really powerful reclaiming of cultural narrative that exists with groups like Ho Manu Collective, which is a collective of Taunga Puro specialists who have been doing a lot to kind of grow that art form both regionally and nationally and internationally. We have a really strong music scene that is seen as performers creating a range of original work including performers such as Kimbrough who have gone on to win multiple Grammys. We've had groups like Crowded House come from here, the Datsons, the top twins. So there's a really strong legacy of really powerful performers and as well as a really strong pathway for young people with groups like the Rahuie Project with groups like Star Jam with pathways for families to embed arts practices both in the school lives and also outside of schools. We see some really transformative and accessible arts making. So this is a group called Equal Voices Arts which is New Zealand's only deaf-led performing arts company. And so it's very much looking at the accessibility and innovation around how do we communicate and tell stories through shared language. Again, we can see some really powerful connections to Kapa Haka with the work that's going on with Waikato Tainui and really quirky arts activity. So we have a really strong tradition of street theatre, of street performances with groups like Free Lunch which is a professional street theatre group that's been running for about 26 years in the region as well as the work that's been done by groups like this which is the Big Muffin Serious Ensemble which is a ukulele ensemble that has toured internationally and works in ukulele festivals and just brings a really kind of fun, a reverent energy to community festivals around the region. Our local gallery spaces are continuing to find new ways to express and this image is part of a Kotahitanga Collection which commissioned a range of artists to respond to growing instances of racism to use art as a tool for powerful social change to inspire communication and to tell different stories of how we connect with one another. We have youth development programs and these are often sponsored by investors, by councils, by governments to really kind of build that pathway for people and we see some more pathways for connections and to cross-disciplinary art forms with storytelling, with live drawing and live music and kind of bold performance works that travel across our region. I'm just going to cycle through a couple more. Here we go. We have the Boone Street Art Festival. This is another iconic part of the Waikato Art Scene which has been going for six years and has commissioned over 40 murals in and around Hamilton. This has also appeared with the work of the Mesh Sculpture Trust which they've put up public artworks and are working on their fifth one as well as some smaller-scale work. We also see some really interesting work that pairs technology with art and installation. So this is part of a program that was part of an innovating streets work which was looking at pedestrianising areas through placemaking and spacemaking, utilizing art to do that, but also paired with the Te Tudu Light Festival which is looking at really interesting expressions of artistic understanding through technology and we can see that there's more work happening here with the programs like Boone After Dark. My screen is now not... We have some really strong dancers, musical theatre is really big in the region as well as kind of street... and the screen is jumping ahead of me. So really what we see is a really collaborative network of artists and performers who are looking to embed arts, culture and creativity across all ecosystems so that it's not just a thing that sits on the side but it's connected with our health and wellness, it's connected with our education it's connected with our social cohesion, it's connected with our civic infrastructure and it becomes part of the way that we tell our stories and really identify the Waikatoa's being the place that it is and we see really powerful pathways for having arts, culture and creativity playing a vital role in thriving society and looking at how it contributes to how we grow, how we reach understanding, how we celebrate the places that we live and how we can utilise arts, culture and creativity to think about the world and its current state and eventually this is going to let me go to the next slide here we go and this is a video that talks about the vibrant arts scene of Kere Kere Roa Kere Kere Roa Hamilton is a fantastic place for the arts. We have so many incredible writers artists, directors. There's heaps going on here and the community has been growing for a really long time. There is a steep connection to the whenua that Tunga Te Whenua have here so there is a very rich, Māori presence. It is a vibrant city. It is growing. Some of the hidden gems in Kere Kere Roa Hamilton are places like Riverley Theatre like Creative Waikatoa like the media or like Arts Post. Never project space in Frankton. Lot of really great stuff happening there both in terms of visual art and performance. We've got some of the best street theatre in the country with free lunch. Boom Festival, check out the streets go for a wonder all around the city. Clown Street is one of the key tennis in Kere Kere Roa. There's always exciting shows going on over there. The Media Theatre is a space for the community to share creative experiences and we have so many unique arts experiences here. There are places like Navara Lounge which is a fantastic venue for bands. Features like the Misoverse have walked through art space. Kere Kere Roa is Bob, the city is Bob. I think I'll probably cry if I ever have to leave. We're different 100% different to everyone else. I'm really excited about what I see happening in the creative scene here and I really look forward to seeing what the next generation does. Come to Hamilton come to Kere Kere Roa and experience the arts right here. Come to Kere Kere Roa things grow here. Especially the arts. Awesome, that's all for me. Wonderful. Thank you Jeremy and the technology largely worked. So I'll take it. Now, question is, do we have Cheryl on the call? Has she joined us now? She was just looking for the idea but she went into the meeting and I should find it. So until Cheryl gets here, I'll just give a wrap up. That was amazing team is what I want to say. Pretty cool. Some things what I really noticed because I went to Waikato University in the early 90s and so it's really good to see that the balloon festival is still happening since like 30 years ago and I love it now that the city is starting to embrace the river and actually utilize the river face. I think that's really cool. I love seeing that and I really enjoyed the timber trail. I've done that a few times. I think that's pretty cool. One thing I really love is that we've brought up is the difference actually on the east coast of New Zealand we have white sand and on the actual west coast of New Zealand we have black sand and that's actually something that people don't actually realise either. Waikato University when I was there, that was when we had our first computer lab. So John Hawker who was an instructor at the time he was the one that brought the email and the first link of having internet to New Zealand and that was through Waikato University. Yes, the very first internet connection was in the Māori Waikato at the University. Yep, exactly and so that was pretty cool and what I love also that you've brought up is that each University has now specialised in technology in a certain area which I think is pretty cool of New Zealand because it's such a small market and I love it how we've done that. Rather than competing we've sort of gone into it so I really like it how you've gone into that AI. You've got the AI Institute and you're sort of nailing down in that and that you've got the new climate degree and also the security Yeah, I think that's amazing. So now Cheryl has just jumped in so we'll just let her have time to catch her breath and then we will jump into Cheryl. She's going to talk to us about what it's like to be a fellow and why she chose Raglan to live in a place and Cheryl, have you managed to, are you there ready to roll whenever you are? Yes I am. Kia ora. Kia ora Michelle. Kia ora Cheryl. Thank you for joining us over to you to talk a bit about your experience as a fellow in the region. Kia ora. Tena koutou katoa. So I'm Cheryl Reynolds. I'm Edmund Hillary Fellow from Piri Piri that's cohort 2 and I've been living in the Waikato region the mighty Waikato for the almost 20 years now. I had arrived from London and I've been running a creative tech company in London up until 2021 and when 9-11 happened we'd had a team of six beautiful people that we were just finishing off a big project for the World Trade Centre and they were there when the planes went in and that changed my life and by the end of 2001 I had arrived in Aotearoa looking to find myself after that experience and I arrived to stay with a friend for a few weeks and I ended up with an open ticket staying nine months and I fell in love with Aotearoa and it's a beautiful country and incredible people and so after I'd left Aotearoa I ended up back in London eventually and I'd always wondered if I could live in Aotearoa, New Zealand and within six months I had secured an eight month contract to start up an academic research centre in the Waikato in Hamilton, Kirikiri Roa and it was an eight month contract and I arrived and I settled quite quickly in Fangaroa Raglan where I live now with my beautiful partner and so I've been here since 2003 and it's been a wonderful journey it's been great for me I have worked in the city I ran the academic research centre which spun out a business incubator called Soda and that was a wonderful experience to be able to start that up and to grow that in the city and my experience of living and working here is one of everything is so easy you know mayors by name and MPs by name and everyone's two degrees of separation if not one and a half and it's a great place to live and work I went on to start up a philanthropic foundation so starting things is good and easy and building organisations is so possible because people are willing to help you and get behind you and people are kind here people are good people so they genuinely want to help and help you achieve what you're wanting to and likewise it becomes reciprocal so you want to help other people so a beautiful community to work in I live in Fangaroa Raglan as I mentioned and that's a small community of three and a half thousand on the west coast of the north island and it's just 40 minutes drive from Kirikiriroa Hamilton and it's a great place with beautiful people it's a surf beach and beautiful mountains lifestyle is great many people like us, like us fellows that are living there lots of surfers and creatives and entrepreneurs and techies really good Māori community sort of significant population that's very integrated or we're integrated with Tagata Fenawa and they welcome us and yes so a great lifestyle in Raglan which is growing and a great place to live and work I think I've probably covered it do you have any questions I think that's great thank you Cheryl really appreciate you taking the time I know you squeezed us in between various meetings if there are any questions from the room otherwise I think mainly people will be watching the recording we'll love this later if there are any questions we'll grab those otherwise we might carry on so thank you Cheryl you're very welcome just before I close off the four more presentation and thank you for those of you who are attending and those who are watching the recording really appreciate the time that you're taking to learn about the Waikato region and the great opportunities and lifestyle we have to offer what the Edmund Hillary Fellowship has to offer and we'd love to welcome you into our region I wanted to leave you with some thoughts from the Te Waka team on some of the key areas where we can see change makers like the Edmund Hillary Fellows being able to add really significant value in the Waikato region we've got really emerging growth sectors like aquaculture and future foods that need expert skills we need expertise and innovative approaches to sustainability decarbonisation and climate adaptation we have manufacturers that will need expertise to support them in adopting industry 4.0 technologies we want to think differently about how we can generate value from waste and transition to alternative fuels especially for our freight sector we need innovative green tech agri-tech and biotech businesses to help us reduce our regional emission profile we need more innovative on the world stage we need more innovation and more startups like everywhere we need more renewable energy we need visitors and talent from around the world to come to us and we need to get better at how we commercialise all the research that we are producing and we need our businesses and educators and researchers to collaborate more together so there's lots of challenges and opportunities there if those sound exciting to you we'd really love to see you in our region and helping us to drive the change that we need to grow into the future so thank you again for your time nami nukia koutou now I'm happy to open up for questions, thank you again thank you Rosie Rosie's got a question that she'll read out I'm just going to just stop by sharing there so that we can see your beautiful faces Rosie thank you thank you, and listen that was really great I loved the exposition that you've done so thank you so much just my question was given the region's dependency on both agriculture and particularly dairy what's occurring in the regenerative agriculture space and actually beginning to plan for the shift away from dependence on commodities I think it's fair to say that we are early on that journey I think in some ways Covid hasn't been helpful for us on that journey in the sense that bunkering down and getting on with the way that we have done things and with really high dairy prices it's kind of supported just keep calm and carry on but there is also obviously a recognition with the work that's gone into Hewakia Kanaw and some of those other initiatives that they do need to be changes to the practices but I would say we are early it's definitely interest it's just figuring out how do we do that in a way that is sustainable for them as industries and businesses to be able to make that transition I don't know if others on the call have a perspective on that but that would be my view on it Thank you, that makes perfect sense Do you have anything you want to reflect on or give back to the team? Yeah, I think it was multi-dimensional overview that so many different areas that resonate so I'm just really excited that's my friend from Japan's home base where she has a room for me as soon as I get there and she's already been laying a lot of the ground work with people to meet and experiences to have and great hearing your perspective as well Cheryl so thanks for sharing that I can't wait to visit in August Wonderful, I hope the weather will be okay August is somewhat wet here in the Waikato but we'll do our best to put on some good weather for you Yeah, actually my wife chose she's going to join me coming back in January through March she did the research but it gets me two trips so I'm happy as well and then there's a lot to connect with the Future Food Network which I'm working with on the regenerative agriculture about to head to their mother ship of regenerative villages so I think there'll be a lot of good cross fertilisation with that Wonderful, I think the other thing to add there which just occurred to me with your question Rosalynn as you were speaking Todd there's also a real opportunity for the region around what's the word for it but there's a lot of Māori land that what can I think of the word when it's not super productive it can be poor quality land marginal land but there's obviously a significant amount of it in our region and the region is really looking for opportunities for how to make best productive use of that land and are the opportunities in regenerative agriculture or different forms of food production or different forms of agriculture to make better use of that marginal land to continue creating wealth in the Māori economy as well the blue economy is another portfolio of solutions around turning marginal land into abundant land including abundant energy clean water organic agriculture so there are a bunch of examples that already have traction in different parts of the world that we can look to and sort of help them choose which ones seem most relevant I think that's exactly what people are looking for in the region is to learn from what's worked elsewhere and overseas and they're not necessarily wanting to be the guinea pigs and be the first to try something they've had to fight really hard to get the assets in that they have so they're wanting to be sensible and the investments that they're making so having that international expertise from fellows like yourselves to be able to bring that experience into our region and share that knowledge would be greatly welcomed nice that's good thank you for putting that there I'm just going to finish with the recording but I just want you all to stay there so thank you team thank you for an amazing presentation it was been lovely to see it today and experience and see the growth since I was there 30 years ago I look forward to coming back and being a tourist in March at my cousins wedding so it's going to be great to see all the new things and now I know where to go and what to do so kai kite team and look forward to the next session