Young Enterprise Scheme National Awards

E kui mā, e koro mā, e hine mā, e tama mā, tēnei aku mihi māhana ki a koutou.  Kia ora tātou katoa.  Ladies and gentlemen, young women and young men, warm greetings to you all.

I want to specifically acknowledge: Hon Bill English, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance; and Nigel Gould and Terry Shubkin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer respectively of the Young Enterprise Trust; and Murray Reade, Chief Executive Officer of the Lion Foundation.

Thank you for inviting me to the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme National Awards dinner.  I am delighted to be here supporting the Young Enterprise Trust, and the work it is doing to “inspire, educate and transform students through enterprise experiences.”  This is the sixth time that I’ve joined the Trust to celebrate enterprise.  My most recent experience was last September.  I was a Money Week Ambassador, and participated in a Lunches-for-Less workshop at Aorere College in Auckland. 

I see the L4L team is here tonight – good luck for the awards.  In fact, I want to wish all 26 Young Enterprise companies that are here tonight, good luck for the awards.  Having said that, I think that luck doesn’t just happen because someone wishes it upon you.  In building success, whether that’s in sport, academics or business, you need to make your luck!  Some of you have already been making your luck, you are regional champions, and some have won other awards, but who will take home the awards tonight? 

Before we get to that part of the evening, there are a couple of things I would like to say – about my being here, the Young Enterprise Scheme, and the awards. 

There are a number of reasons I support the Young Enterprise Trust and especially these awards.  First of all, I endorse giving young New Zealanders the opportunity “to grab innovation, enterprise, giving things a go and taking a risk as the basis for success.”  Also, the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme hits three of the things that I think are important about creating a better New Zealand – young people, excellence and enterprise.

Tonight, we are celebrating the achievements of the 2013 group of YES students.  There are a variety of awards to be presented.  All of them recognise excellence, determination, judgment and hard work – enterprise! 

Last year when I attended this ceremony, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.  I knew the finalists would be good, but I didn’t realise how good they would be.  Every award winning enterprise was innovative, well thought-out and successful.  It was hard to differentiate the enterprises.

The top three place-getters featured very different products, ranging from an online trading mall, to a teaching resource covering New Zealand’s flora and fauna, to an olive oil drizzle.  The supreme winner, Caring & Co from Manurewa High School, produced an olive oil drizzle that was the only New Zealand product to win best in class and a gold medal at the Los Angeles International Olive Oil competition.   And equally importantly, the profits Caring & Co generated allowed every child at Homai primary school to complete the Life Education Trust’s Harold the Giraffe programme.   Tonight, I’m looking forward to hearing of the latest YES companies and your amazing stories!

The great value of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme is that it brings together things that we, as New Zealanders, value.  It recognises excellence – striving to be the best you can be.  It recognises that business and enterprise are near the heart of improving our standards of living.  While governments and Ministers like Hon Bill English can help to create an environment for businesses to prosper, they don’t of themselves create success.  Enterprise and excellence together generates a thirst for success – a quality all good entrepreneurs share – and something young people can thrive on.

Its value goes beyond the winners and awards.  It teaches valuable life skills.  And while it’s impossible for everyone to win an award and some enterprises won’t succeed, the Young Enterprise Scheme encourages young people to have a go, to be confident in their abilities, to set stretch goals and to be achievers.  Equally it demonstrates that mistakes and set backs are an important part of learning, and that challenges are really opportunities playing hard to get.  In his book, Bounce, which is about the value of focused endeavour, the British table-tennis player Matthew Syed observes that:  “The paradox of excellence is that it is built upon the foundations of necessary failure.”

I come back to the concept of enterprise.  The Oxford Dictionary gives two definitions for enterprise, which highlight key issues about the importance of enterprise and these awards. 

One definition, which seems obvious, is that it is simply “a business or company”.   However, as any business owner, and you YES entrepreneurs, know only too well, there is nothing simple or obvious about establishing and running a business.  Making any business succeed takes hard work, time, inspiration, and a lot of perspiration to start, let alone to keep it going.

You will have also seen that there are as many options for successful business ideas as there are stars in the sky.  Some involve leveraging off our world-leading primary industries, some involve new twists on old ideas, and others involve investment in new ideas and technologies.  It’s a matter of finding an opportunity, carving out a niche to exploit it, backing yourself and doing it better than anyone else.

The point was well made by the late Sir Paul Callaghan, a great New Zealand scientist and passionate believer in enterprise and the commercialisation of science.  In his last interview, he spoke of his involvement as one of the founders of Magritek, which makes devices using magnetic resonance for the food and petroleum industries.  He said:

“Of all the things I look back on – I've done some world class science … and been well recognised for that – the company is something I'm deeply proud of.  Because a lot of people talk about commercialisation.  We did it.  In 2004/5 we started a company with two staff.  We've got 23 now, we export $3 million a year and we're growing like hell.  …  We are manufacturing some of the highest tech product around. … Our products happen to be the best in the world.  If they're not, we don't export.  That's the name of the game.”

Sir Paul’s words appropriately point to the other definition of enterprise offered by the Oxford Dictionary, namely: “a project or undertaking, especially a bold or complex one”.  There’s a lot of meaning in that short phrase, and it resonates with these awards and the Young Enterprise Scheme.

Not everyone who participates in the scheme will go on to become a successful entrepreneur.  However, the 26 enterprises being highlighted tonight encapsulate boldness and complexity.  The fundamental skills of setting up a business, setting objectives and measuring your progress, setting a budget and understanding the environment for your product or service and what generates a profit or a loss, give you an insight into how to simplify complexity.  These practical skills will help navigate a way through a lifetime of choices, so you create options from which to make smart choices and decisions.  The other thing I’ve noticed with YES entrepreneurs is they have a mind for doing good, sustainably!  In life, fortune favours the bold! 

In conclusion, I want to congratulate the Young Enterprise Trust and the Lion Foundation for the on-going commitment to the Young Enterprise Scheme.  I also want to thank all of the schools, mentors and businesses that support the YES in its endeavours.

Most of all, however, I want to congratulate the young people here tonight.  I congratulate you for your hard work, for your commitment to excellence, and for being bold, taking a risk and giving YES a go.  That’s why you are here tonight.  The challenge now, whether you win a major award or not, is to ensure that the recognition and acknowledgement you have received is not an end in itself.  Go back to your schools and be mentors, role models and promoters for entrepreneurship in your schools, in your communities, and in your regions.  Follow the example of other YES participants – build successful enterprises, do good and make a difference for yourselves, for New Zealand and perhaps the world. 

No reira, kia ora, kia kaha, kia manawanui, huihui tātou katoa – be well, be strong, be courageous.