 Rai anurus bet Open Gen Okua, rur�imun, rai i te kaitai mag23a NCT-rai m Zi o datesosit zaBrAM. Aga nanir해 taika, mūsiau na sei rai kaitai Ngatiêmara OK� Project hearing  walls by specifically looking at transformative projects, he has a background in capital, he was the director of direct capital. Matthew Monophan, really inspiring individual who I know a number of you in the room know, really such a pleasure and honour to meet Matthew a couple of years ago now and so inspiring as director of inflection, also CEO, founder of inflection, director of Namaste Foundation and also co-founder of Kiwi Connect so welcome both to the stage. It's a privilege to be up here and get a chance to interview Bill for all of you and I know we're going to have a lot of questions so Bill and I had some time to prep some topics and try to give a high level frame of next foundation but also very much want to invite the conversation so get ready with questions as we go along. So thanks for coming Bill. Pleasure. Nice to be here Matt, thank you. So maybe you can start off with the high level of who you are, what you're doing at next foundation, maybe a bit about the background. What I'm doing at next foundation, a lot of learning a lot but you know my next foundation you know as Rebecca said was launched last year with a gift from a very low profile New Zealand couple called Neil and Annette Plowman who were involved with a business called New Zealand Towel Services that many of you would know if you went to the toilet or the bathroom any time from about 10 years ago to 100 years ago then you probably used an NZTS Towel and Neil and Annette had been very philanthropic before next foundation they had been involved in a number of large scale projects like Rotorua Island, the Restoration of Abel Tasman National Park and some educational initiatives like Teach First and University of Auckland fellowships and they decided that they wanted to do their philanthropy in a more structured way and so formed next foundation last year and I've been lucky enough and privileged enough to be the CEO of that business since July last year and we've got an interest in making large scale wide impact grants in the areas of environment and education so the 100 million that Rebecca and Matt have talked about is to be spend down. My background as Rebecca has alluded to has been an investment really this is my third career my first career was really in foreign exchange dealing in Wellington in the 80s followed that with 20 years with direct capital which is a private equity business or as Payne's to point out to Matt that it is what those from your Silicon Valley would call growth equity not what some people associate with private equity and then across to next foundation last year and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. So one of the things in talking to Bill coming from a business background it's really interesting how next foundation is structured and the type of thinking that you're being tasked to bring into philanthropy but before we dive into that I'm wondering if you can speak to a bit about you know your relationship to this challenge we have globally around environmental restoration around education what drew you to this work what drew this this team configuration together and and how do you think about its importance? Yeah you know one of the things I've always believed about New Zealand is that you know one of the great benefits of being a small country is that is that you can actually do things and make things happen in New Zealand's an easy and easy to do business and an easy to parent and an easy to do things place. So you know next foundation was set up and and next foundation was set up really on the US philanthropic foundation model so while what it's doing is in some ways relatively new in New Zealand it's certainly not common in the states and those of you who are familiar with US philanthropic foundations the names we know and names like Carnegie and Rockefeller and some you know we're thinking about things in a similar way so I thought that bringing that structure and that way of thinking to New Zealand was a real opportunity. The chairman is a guy Chris Liddell who'll be known too many of you from New Zealand who's in the states has had quite a lot of exposure to the US philanthropic scene over there over the last 10 or 15 years has had a 35 year relationship with Neil and Annette Plowman and a very strong and trusting relationship as have the other trustees so they put together a structure and an approach in a way of thinking which I was which which I thought was great. I was fortunate enough that when I when they asked me to talk about how I would think about things I really talked about my experience which was involved in what I'd call growth I like the phrase growth equity that you've that you've got met but private private company investment we called it and I talked about that approach even though we were giving away or will be and will be giving away money we're still looking for returns they're just not financial returns they're ecological and educational returns and so the thinking is very similar and and that attracted me and you know the two the two areas from a personal point of view education I've always been interested in I come from a family that's been involved in that I've got a wife who is a teacher a sister who is a principal a father who was a teacher's college lecturer I've always been in and around it I had the fortune to teach myself and one of my one of the careers I didn't mention and and the environment is something that I think every New Zealander just gets that it's part of who we are and and it's critical to a successful future so it was that got me and as a matter of scale I mean 100 million being deployed by next foundation you know relative to maybe some US based philanthropic organizations is smaller than some of the ones you've mentioned but for New Zealand this is you know right up there if not the largest it's different yeah well 100 million is is dramatically smaller than many of those foundations but so is New Zealand luckily so you know that's and and I guess you know 100 million is it's a it's a it's a lot of money in one sense in a New Zealand context we're not but it's not there are other benefactors around giving significant gifts the thing that's probably a little different with our approach is that we're not looking to put that 100 million in 100 different places we're looking to put it in maybe a dozen and and make commitments that will be between three and 15 million for a multi-year commitments so the scale of the individual grants is probably at a philanthropic level are relatively new for New Zealand and so that that minds us to look for things that we believe can have a national can have a national impact and and our focus is New Zealand but we're mindful of the fact that there are things that if we can do them well in New Zealand they can have an impact in in offshore markets or in in other countries or or can it can still be leader leading in a global way even though really our our passion is about doing things for New Zealand so we're going to dive into I understand that next foundation opened it up for applications and maybe you could tell us a bit about that process and the outcome there and then also really want to get to this notion of ecological return and education return how are you thinking about taking this structured approach and applying it to to this area okay yeah okay yeah okay two two questions there really Matt so the first question is yeah we set up a once a year process for applications for grants and one of the one of the things that did it also attract me about the job was that the chairman Chris Liddell who's it who's taken an active role in this as an engineer so everything's got a process and a system and part of the system which I thought was a really good idea was to run a once a year process rather than having it open for 365 days a year and so we but we did that and part of the thinking for Neil and Annette behind that was that being involved in projects as I said over the previous decade really but one of the reasons they that next was created in the way it was and and and given some some sort of public profile completely different to the way Neil and Annette had operated before uh was um was because they wanted to find out what was out there in those two fields so a lot of the process was and we will run it again this year in May and June is to find out well where are the areas in environment and education that somebody like us can can get engaged and then we can decide whether we think those are the areas we want to get engaged in so we ran that process we ran a little sweepstake internally as to how many applications we might get my guess was 80 um I was sort of probably in the lower middle of the pack as as I often am when it comes to guessing things like that and um and we ended up getting 287 which was a lot more than any of us had expected and um and I got to say that you know I would have thought that 15% of them would have been kukes and they weren't um you know there were there were maybe five that were kukes they were you know it's a privilege to um to see all the good stuff that's going on in the country and I'll move by it you know it's been one of it's been one of the privileges of the job and so um we had to uh we we looked how did we look at those 287 while we were looking for things that we thought were transformational in the area that they were acting we thought could be inspirational and we thought we're going to be that we're being done in a business like way because as you have said Matt we come from a business background Neil and Annette come from a business background and and they set up a board uh to do this and the board appointed a CEO and that's a pretty business-like way to do things and um so uh we were looking for as for things that had those sort of three aspects transformational inspirational and business-like at a very high level um you know that allowed us to get the 287 to probably attend for that reasonably quickly um and then getting from that from those 30 uh down to what ended up being for when we were expect that we announced uh just before Christmas uh that we expected I expected anyway would be two um but we ended up being four because there were four that we thought uh we met our met our criteria um getting from with that was a lot more difficult job um and more subjective so what are the elements of subjectivity but what are the things that we were looking for when we were sort of going at at that stage um as I said we were looking for things for that were transformational and and that would not otherwise happen so you know a lot of things that if there were other funders be they government corporate philanthropic funders then those that was not an area that we thought that we wanted to go we we wanted to go to projects that we thought had a really clear definition of the problem and understood what the problem was and um and and it needed and it needed to be a problem that we uh we um uh were interested in and there's an element of subjectivity in that we're a family foundation um one of the areas we've engaged in is predator management predator free New Zealand um we're there because we all think it's important but we're there fundamentally too because Neil and I have a passion for it so you know that's um you know that's the that's there's a subjective element in that and there's nothing to say that the areas that we choose are any better or worse than other areas of uh that the philanthropists choose so the third thing that was important to us was good management team and particularly good leadership so you know probably more leadership than good management team uh really and we think we think that's fundamental uh really more than more than structure um we wanted them because we in a New Zealand context we see that they are large scale uh grants then we wanted them to have wide impact and to have the potential to be wide impact to have that wide impact or national impact and then we wanted them to be to have a plan uh in a thought process i guess that would see them being sustainable because we don't see ourselves as a forever funder and uh if we've got to put a time frame on it it's sort of a five-year time frame so we want to be thinking and talking to projects that can see themselves getting to a sustainable financial and other model uh in something like a five-year time frame um so those are the sort of the five characteristics that we applied at a high level and you talk about business like and one of the things that really struck me about our conversation the other day is that um you know in business there's so much focus on competition and the whole model is based on competition whereas with this predator free project maybe you can talk a bit about it you're really thinking about collaboration and partnerships yeah yeah that's absolutely right i mean one thing more at more at a personal level Matt but you know one of the joys of the of the of the whole gig from my point of view is that when you're operating in commercial in the commercial here and stuff IP and protection of IP and so on is always in your mind uh and always in the discussion the great thing about this gig is you're just given it away and um if people come and ask us how we do things then um we um uh you know we tell them and i've shared my board papers with all sorts of people actually and um and uh and that's um you know that's not only incredibly freeing but it's also an incredibly rewarding thing to be doing so predator free which is one of the areas yes it is uh you know we've um we've partnered and and invested and we call it uh you know we're making grants but uh we use the the terminology that we use as strategic investment um because getting returns is why we're doing it and and and we are involved with our projects on an ongoing basis not at an operational level but at a at a governance level and that strategy and network so we we it's not a give the money and come back and and invite us to the drinks at the end sort of relationship it's a it's an ongoing partnership with uh with the organizations that we uh that we partner with and we look to bring things to them other than just the money and um and so you predator free in New Zealand so some of you if you and some of you may have been here on Saturday when Lou Sanson from doc spoke about zero invasive predators and uh an initiative to um to to bring new technologies and processes to how we manage mainland predator management we can do it on the islands we can make them predator free the big challenge the next challenge and we'll be able to do it is to is to is to take large chunks of the mainland and predator and zips got some technologies that can make a real difference in doing that um so that's set up as a charitable trust with a corporate trustee with a board um with a a chief executive and and it's and a small team of four or five it's akin to a startup business that sort of film the film of cause of the world have got you know enormous experience in i'm surprised that i'm back in that business but it's easier when you don't have to get the money back at the end of it and and so and uh yeah and um it is and because the objectives with zip uh to um uh are very much to create processes and technologies uh that we will that will be able to be used by all conservation projects in the country and that's written into the constitution of the business that any of the process of the of the uh any of the ip and so this generated needs to be for the benefit of conservation in new zealand so i think about it as a for the environment structure um although it's actually it's a corporate trustee charitable charitable trust structure so this notion of for the environment is it's so interesting because this is one of the things we're really passionate about is the this blending of worlds between for-profit non-profit and how the rules are really changing you're applying a business like approach to non-profit you're saying we don't need the money back but we do need return we are doing this as an investment in the environment and i i'm just curious if you can reflect on anything else you see in the ecosystem that can help us if we have 300 amazing applications just out of the gate already and it's heartbreaking to see all of these amazing projects underfunded with doing good work for the world and for new zealand what can we do to bring more capital into the for the environment models that exist yeah okay what can we do one one little thing i guess one thing we did when we saw them um which indirectly to you to your question matters you know we we became aware and no surprise to any of you there were a lot and let's take conservation there we got 50 60 probably applications a lot of them were doing their own thing in different parts of the country in a similar way there's a lot of you know we're great at starting stuff up and and and you know getting the connection and so on doesn't always happen so one of the things you know when you have the privilege of seeing a number of them like that and one at one time you it hits you so we did something we set up within our website a thing called next change and and and invited everybody who'd applied to put their application up um a two pager uh because we just it was a two pager and um and you know probably uh i think there's a little under a hundred of them are up there on next change and we that was one thing we did because we just thought by getting them up there so that people can actually see what's going on that will create things and you know you're you're completely in the business of the of the commons that's your that's been your business well that was our little our little commons around around let's say conservation uh projects so um you know we did that we and we hope that by doing that and by people seeing other stuff and by people and and sharing other stuff that that that will attract um other other philanthropists we've had a number of approaches from uh from within New Zealand uh from from people and and and some organizations who have got an interest in the philanthropic space and from and from and from people in the states and one fantastic Japanese family who've who have run it who've been running a foundation for a number of years interested in conservation education and the arts and we've had approaches from them just about how we're doing things our contribution to that is to share what we're doing and um and to encourage them to participate and to see you know one of the great benefits of New Zealand is and its smallness is you can operate with government here um we've got government here at the table they're open they're looking for these opportunities and if you walk down Lambton Key you'll meet most of the people that you want to meet and and um and we've worked very closely with DOC so Lou when uh for those of you who are here um Zip is a is essentially a joint venture with DOC but we're prior to that we're involved in the restoration of Abel Tasman National Park making that predator free that's DOC land a project which is being funded by next run by next DOC are one of the partners in it but they are also a collaborator they are also a contractor in it and those sort of relationships and those sort of structures are a great opportunity so I think you know it's but it's telling that story is one of the is one of the reasons why you know Chris was a driver and this really said the US that you know there's a lot we learn from the US philanthropic model here in this country and it's not because they're more generous than us they're just a bit more developed in the in the models and um and got more experience and so you know that's our our sort of perspective is you know let's start we haven't been talking about it yet but we will start talking about it because you gotta wait till you've done something first we haven't done anything much yet terrific for anyone watching this if you don't know DOC is Department of Conservation we had a great talk from Lou which will be available on the KiwiConnect channel really highly encourage anyone needing it to see that talk to check it out I have a million more questions Bill this is really great and just want to acknowledge just the the terrific work you're doing but we have so many brilliant minds in the audience so I'd love to pass the mic to to anyone who has questions or reflections hi this is Simon Holdsworth do you you talked about collaboration do you have a way to actually bring in other people to to piggyback what you're doing yeah yeah and that's a good point thanks for raising it because yes we very much we are we want to do that we would like to do that so to give you an example of how that's happened to date um zip the the zero invasive predators started off you know in a sense a joint venture between NEXT and DOC Department of Conservation we went and had a talk along the way to Gareth Morgan who's clearly interested in the same space and is running a project in Stuart Island and now Gareth does a lot of other things other than support conservation but one of the things he does do is support conservation and so Gareth recognised that what zip was doing could really help him in terms of Stuart Island he has come in as as a as a funder of zip and so has Sam and the thing that's really exciting for us about Sam is that most of the work that Sam's done in the philanthropic space and he's done some fantastic things has been offshore and and so you know getting him engaged in something like this is is really interesting and and if I could answer that question in 48 hours I'd be able to talk about somebody else who's getting in as a partnership so we yes the answer is an emphatic yes we we really do want to partner with people just in my experience with NEXT I think one of the really transformational things that you're doing is firstly mapping the ecosystem of all the potential partners and players and then amplifying that good work being a facilitator of some of these strategic partners so that it's not all about NEXT and that we can have the catalytic impact at the pace and the scale that the country needs so I think that's a key element to the strategy and it's really exciting and and humbling to see in the philanthropic space in my experience one of the one of the major challenges that we see is this need to have you know be out in front and name and lights badges on things and NEXT and the ploughmans with their very humble approach I can see having it that will enable some truly catalytic impact in New Zealand so so further questions and and I'll add one point Rebekah you make a good point you know two points I'll add we're not inventing anything here we're just doing what what organisations do in the in the rest of the world and one of them in this regard with relevance to the sharing and collaborating is that's here in New Zealand doing this already and really leading and it is Julian Robertson's Aotearoa foundation so Julian Robertson and and and his New Zealand philanthropic vehicle Aotearoa are really talking this book doing exactly this in this way and and you know we're incredibly lucky that that Julian and and his late wife decided that this was a country that they were going to make this sort of thing work in I'm curious now that you've started interacting with these different types of organisations which classes of organisations or which types of organisations are ready to report measure and report on returns and which types are not and you know what kind of help do they need yeah in the in the in the non in the not-for-profit space yeah um the um because it's no coincidence that Gareth and Sam Morgan for example who I mentioned have come out of the commercial space and it's it's not a coincidence um you know if you're talking about the New Zealand philanthropic scene um that you know the larger um philanthropic foundations uh you know Todd you know Todd foundation for example um and have they are very much in that space they're looking to do that you know I'd read the most and and you know they're thinking about things in that way I think that you know the difference for from for us is more about the size of the grants that we're prepared to make and I guess the fact that we're only talking we're we're narrowing our focus uh more so we're saying actually well if we're going to make 12 grants with a hundred million dollars and I hope it'll be more in the end because I hope that we'll get more partners uh but um if we're going to do that well we can't go everywhere we've got to be very clear about where we want to go and why we want to go there um so um you know I those larger players I think are in that space I think there's an awareness of it it's the issue I think more is probably um is just how is just um expertise and how to do it and you know it's the fact that the board of next chose somebody who came from an investment background a private company or a financial investment background that's probably relatively new in New Zealand um um a lot of people thought I was retiring um I always knew I was going to a full-time job I didn't just realise quite how full time it was and um um but uh and I certainly um see that you know I think there's an awareness um there's probably just it's not not easy to um to not so easy to make it happen about next um and how we're able to kind of measure and tell the stories of the impact moving forward is um as we you know co-create in this country the ability to um frame the holistic social and environmental value that we're receiving and telling those stories I think that will be a big pull for other partners to come in um because people are good they want to do good and they want to be able to demonstrate how they've done good in the full holistic sense of the word so I can see that as a growing area and really exciting one for you so just a question over here oh thanks um just you mentioned with zip that there you're treating them more like a venture sort of an early stage venture rather than a kind of large-scale sort of deployment of capital for a project is there a difference in how you're treating those two different kinds of philanthropic investment as in if it's more of a an early stage venture you'd assume more risk you'd assume um that it has to unfold in a different way any different support or are you looking at them as being kind of pretty much the same thing um let me see if this answers your question that um zip has got all the characteristics of a startup business and in fact it more more for those of you it's more of a spinout out of dock they've been running trials within dock for the last couple of years specifically a 40 hectare trial and with their processes and the mulberry sounds and they're about to start or are just starting a 400 hectare trial in the mulberry sounds and so the people that the leader of zip the the chief executive has has left dock and joins zip as has has has has the number two and they will recruit they will recruit two or three other people to come and join them so in that sense it's got all the characteristics of a startup business and and all the risks and so is it high risk absolutely there are no guarantees that what they are doing will work um um but they are they're assuming a role that is also about hopefully providing some coordination or collaboration in the area of development of predator free tools for the country um i'm not sure if i'm answering your question but in the area of education we're much more likely to partner not with startups but with organisations that have been operating for probably five years um and that doesn't mean they're big though um and and one of the things we're but but because education i mean it's environment you know the ecological things bloody complex but education involves human beings so it's incredibly complex and and so getting involved in that space if something hasn't been operating for five years probably and and made and had the learnings that come with that it's where our our places is probably going to be to help scale those that that actually make a difference and one of the things that we were made aware of early on in the piece was actually one of New Zealand's and this will be no surprise to anybody but New Zealand's not short of good educational initiatives they don't make it pass the three year mark a lot of them because every three years is generally something dramatic hits them called an election and and and one of the things we were made aware of is that we can provide for those projects that we support the ability to ride through the electoral cycle and and you know some of my advisory panel are older than even me and and they've seen these cycles and they talk about the fact that things come around every 10 years and good initiatives so i think in education i see we've got a bit of a different you know in environment we probably will be more in the zip type thing Rotorara Island Able Tasman we started those projects in education a different place i'm not sure if it answers your question okay time for a couple more reflections sam did you hand was going up earlier thanks very much bill i just want to um your other reflections on any gaps or areas that you're noticing or maybe we're surprised that you didn't receive applications from or areas that other funders are not just next around the country or areas you would suggest that uh New Zealanders explore more and particularly the international community here that we do explore any thoughts broadly yeah well you know sam when you say surprise i was surprised at the quality of the applications i would have um uh at the high quality of them and um you know i was um you know as i said i would have thought 15 percent of them would have been kukes that wasn't the case but more than that actually the you know the 287 that we got 200 and something of them were fantastic projects and um and the people were thinking about them in a really good way and and and you know they didn't all have national potential because they weren't thinking about them that way but they were well put together and you know that's the respect i you know it's a privilege to see that stuff so but if you talk about areas that um uh the areas of opportunity we got um let me let me answer this way in the environment in the environment space we got about we got about half and half you know of of environment and education of the 140 odd in environment 60 of them were in the conservation space 20 or 30 of them were in sustainability probably and then um and then the balance were in a range of other things the next biggest i think was rivers where we got about 17 and um and then there was a range of a range of things i didn't think there were any gaps um that i'm aware of but i but i wasn't looking for them either um uh education is a much more we've got a pie chart and for those of you who are here tomorrow if i'm speaking tomorrow the education pie chart where i show where they came come from is much more there are 25 pieces of the pie in education and it's a reflective of how much more um uh um what's the word but you know 25 pieces of the pie rather than six um uh um uh the education sector is so it covered it covered a wide range of stuff that the thing the other part the way i'd answer the question is we're going to choose an environment i think we're going to choose three places to get engaged and this may or may not be it's probably not music to your ears Sam but but the um you know predator making New Zealand predator free we really that's that moves us you know um rivers and and um you know freshwater management we just think it's such an important issue and we've sort of got an opportunity to get involved in te awarau as we got 17 initiatives te awarau came with one that looked like it had a national approach so we're working with them and the third area which is is environmental education and to my mind it's really a third league for us overall i'm thinking increasingly thinking of us as being about environment education and environmental education um in in education i went run into it now but with this sort of four or five areas that i think we'll get engaged in uh tanks you will for uh sharing all of your uh knowledge and experience from next i've got two questions for you my my first question is around um you talk about the importance of environment education environmental education uh could you explain to us just a little bit more why do you think that's important for us to focus on at this specific time um and my next question i'll ask you the next question after yeah good okay uh why yeah why do why do we choose those uh you know um you know it's a combination it's it's there's there's two elements to it one element is is sort of the logical and if you like the business like answer and the other ones the the the passion answer you know um so environment is you know in an environment because the our focus is on making a you know a legacy of environmental and educational excellence for the benefit of future generations of New Zealanders so if you start thinking about future generations of New Zealanders i think you get to environment education pretty quickly really i mean other and it's not to say they're the complete answer but we said you know we can't do it we can't go everywhere so um environment is not only part of who New Zealanders are and um and you know every New Zealanders i think got an and and a one on one relationship with the environment it's one of the one of the fortunes we have but it's critical to the future of this country at an economic level at a at a at a status level at every level so it's it goes it goes to that education is about the future generations of New Zealanders how do you want and and we are fundamentally about transform transformation that means change that means new ways of doing things that means educations the enabler for doing that so they those two things drive us and um and if you think about environment and those two issues of predator free and um and rivers in one sense you know my generation and the generation before me we're the guys that have not bloody doubt not done the job on those things um so environmental education for us is about the 15 year olds and the eight year olds and the children and um and ensuring they're in a position to um you know to be able to actually a help address the issues that we're that we're doing and be you know deliver deliver better outcomes going forward and one of the nice things about the environment is it regenerates so it's actually not a it's not just about stopping stuff and my last question is do you see those as issues primarily that need to be focused by philanthropic and government organisations or is there a role that the private sector can also play yeah nobody can do it by themselves um the the so the philanthropic sector has got a has got a role to play and um um and and it can be in some places it can be a leadership role but it's by no means the only role and zip you know zip's my an answer to that I think is um you know it's a partnership between um between government uh and the philanthropic sector um uh and individuals and give it another 48 hours and there might be corporates involved and and so the the um you know those the answers and you know Te Arawa which Rebecca's involved with which is looking at rivers on a catchment by catchment basis and somebody said to me so who's responsible for the answers to the rivers uh you know who's who's going to make it happen I said everybody it's um so and as a philanthropist you've got a you're in a privileged position of a not just not bringing being able to bring money to the table that helps you get to the table but but what the privileged position is that you're not coming with any baggage or pre um uh or or history and or any particular angle and stating that you're here for the best possible outcome for this particular project is something that you can do and and provided you deliver on that it's a it's a it's a privileged role that can make a real difference in projects um but it's it's not the complete answer it's a it's a great reminder bill and I appreciate the sentiment that you know we all have work to do in these areas and and it's a great invitation I think to members of the business community um to to really get involved in these areas I'm wondering if there's any um final reflections or anything that that this group people might be able to offer any help you're looking for well I make an observation you know one of the things I think is really exciting about this you know what you have brought together over you know I mean I know this week but over over years is you know and I think on previous days you've had it New Zealand's New Zealand's a great laboratory for doing stuff um it's um you know the people are open-minded they they have to be outward looking because there's no one else out out there that's close yeah the closest place you can find three hours and three hours by flight so um and it's an easy place to do business so it's a um you know it's a um it's a great laboratory um so connections with the US and and other countries um where stuff is happening um that is completely relevant are can be incredibly powerful for both sides um incredibly powerful for New Zealand and New Zealand is because we don't have to invent that much we don't have to invent stuff and um and the and the size the scope and the connections that you know that you the the group of people that you've assembled here can bring is just of incredible value and New Zealand is is it is a small town and so you know making stuff happen is doable uh is doable here and but but connections with offshore groups who are who are looking down here um is great and I always used to say in business when we were looking to sell our business to businesses if we were to go people in the States I'd say get them down here once you get them down here you know it's only one stop out of LA and uh and and and once you get them down here you know they they tend to like it and um and so you know the fact that you've got 40 or 50 uh you know people down here who are looking to help I just think is a magnificent opportunity for us and um and you know all power to you in terms of uh in terms of making it happen let's give it up for Bill thank you