Ms Esterman is the new programme facilitator at Startup Dunedin, replacing Angus Pauley who has left the organisation after five years in different roles to head away on his OE.
Originally from Tauranga, Ms Esterman studied industrial design, ecology and biodiversity at Victoria University. Her introduction to the start-up ecosystem came in 2019 when she started work at UniVentures as an IP commercialisation intern.
From there, she joined student-led investment committee Momentum before returning to UniVentures part-time. She then moved to ecentre at Massey University to help establish a "pipeline" for students to get into entrepreneurship.
Keen to move to the South Island "for a change and some warm weather", Ms Esterman explored Dunedin over Christmas and discovered a "really cool, quite arty city".
Startup Dunedin general manager Rachel Butler said it was always nice to have someone who was attracted by the city, rather than just the job, and Ms Esterman’s broad-ranging background was valuable for the position.
Ms Esterman would meet for one-on-one discussions with start-ups and deliver the Audacious student start-up challenge, eventually also taking over the Incubator, Ms Butler said.
The focus this year was to bring back more events and get back into the community. Events had already been teed up around waste minimisation and a shared event with Red Cross and there would be lots of pop-ups and workshops, Ms Butler said.
Audacious, which already had three workshops, would run as a full-year programme, giving students more time to validate and test their ideas before finishing in October.
There were always "super diverse" entries in the competition and there had been some great wins, including Cheeky Hard Iced Tea which had won in 2020 and gone to market.
