The aftermath of Covid-19 could present a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to entice tech entrepreneurs to relocate to the Queenstown Lakes, a former resident says.
Speaking earlier this week at a webinar hosted by Startup Queenstown Lakes, former Facebook employee John Stockdale said a "tech hub" would bring more living wage and high-wage jobs to the district, and make its economy more resilient.
The challenge was to foster the growth of a community of "dozens, then 50, then 100" tech businesses.
There was potential for new technology that "leverages New Zealand’s natural resources in a sustainable way".
"Seminal technology that makes people’s lives better."
The United States-born entrepreneur attended Wakatipu High School before going on to found several Silicon Valley tech companies.
Like the webinar’s other guest, Simon Small, he had spent the Covid-19 lockdown in Queenstown.
The Christchurch-raised Mr Small worked for governance software company Diligent before co-founding Arria NLG, which he said trained New Zealand companies to "go global without getting on planes".
In their discussion with the Startup Queenstown Lakes chief executive Olivia Wensley, the pair agreed on a range of actions that could help grow the district’s tech community.
That included tax breaks and minimal red tape for start-ups, a visa programme for tech company founders, and a campaign to entice successful expat entrepreneurs to relocate their businesses to the district.
Mr Small said he wanted to see a training programme for former tourism workers that equipped them with online skills for "working across borders".
They are not the only ones to promote tech firms coming here. Britain’s Financial Times published a column suggesting northern hemisphere tech firms, and the like, relocate to New Zealand, and particularly Queenstown, assuming this country becomes a Covid-19 "safe haven".
"The country should use the pandemic to lure not just the world’s highest-value individual migrants but entire businesses," Simon Kuper wrote last week.
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Allowing your silicon valley buddies to come across and continue to run their overseas businesses from Queenstown probably won't do much more than bump up the property prices at the higher end of town.
If we need a tech industry then it starts with education.