Otago businessman and technology pioneer Sir Ian Taylor was guest speaker at the charitable organisation’s annual public meeting in Clutha District War Memorial & Community Centre Te Pou ō Mata-Au (TPŌMA), last Tuesday.
"We banned the word ‘challenge’ and made it a rule that you had to replace it with the word ‘opportunities’," Sir Ian said of the teams he headed over a career that began in the 1980s.
"In those early days, when we were asked if we had a ‘core-value statement’, we had a good think and came up with: ‘Bugger the boxing, pour the concrete anyway’!"
A master story-teller, he explained how this ethos of figuring out how to do a job by ploughing into it while energy and enthusiasm was high, led to ground breaking innovation and global success.
By "turning data into pictures everybody could understand", Sir Ian’s teams made the complexities of sports including golf, cricket, baseball and football accessible to home viewers with "augmented-reality" graphics.
The experts he enabled built air-traffic control simulators beyond the scope of Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, and the evolution of their first, blocky graphics for America’s Cup 1990 can now be marvelled at in the seamless coverage of this week’s regattas.
Warming up the audience ahead of Sir Ian was South Otago High School student and Clutha District Youth Council chair Paige King, who outlined how she had benefitted from the Clutha Foundation’s youth-orientated scholarships and initiatives.
In the last year, Clutha Foundation met their first milestone of exceeding $1 million in funds under management, and after just six years since inauguration they have already distributed about $225,000 in support of organisations and projects throughout the Clutha District.
"They were inspirational," Clutha Foundation executive officer Alison Ludemann said.
"Sir Ian said that ‘each step he took today was looking forward to the benefit of his grandchildren’. That is exactly what Clutha Foundation is doing, as our primary goal is to grow funds under management for the benefit of future generations."
