Understanding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Tech - Risk and Reward

Dan is currently the Founder and CEO of ZeroPoint Ventures, a network of entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and investors who partner with growing companies to re-engineer their organisations for long-term, sustainable growth, and impact. He has over 20 years’ experience leading and building high-performing technology teams and companies at global scale in CTO/CPO/CDO capacities.

Dan recently launched Start NZ Up, a cohesive vision and action plan for a more entrepreneurial economy in Aotearoa. This work leverages 15 years of insights leading the local grassroots startup community and his experiences designing and leading startup accelerators such as Lightning Lab; virtual incubators like ZeroPoint Ventures; and high-growth venture incubation programmes for some of New Zealand’s largest companies including Fonterra, Spark, NZ Post, and Kiwibank.

Dan works closely with founders, mentors, corporate partners and the wider startup community in NZ, aligning ventures to entrepreneurship playbooks that are right for New Zealanders.

Kathleen Bell is the Founder of CarbonSense, an enviro-news service that investigates how business is innovating to reduce climate change and achieve net zero by 2050.  She is formally trained as a political economist and is an accidental expert in the Sustainable Development Goals.  Kathleen holds dual masters degrees in international relations and development studies.  Her previous work was focused in the NGO sector, where she led stakeholder engagement initiatives and built operational partnerships for impact specific to sub-Saharan Africa. 

During her career, Kathleen has worked with the Centre for Development Policy and Research at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, International Institute for Justice and Development in Boston, and The Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Washington, DC.  

Barry Soutar is a Tech Entrepreneur, Maori and integral in Iwi Governance. Tribal affiliations: Ngāi Tai ki Tamaki, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu

Barry has a 30 plus year career in tech locally and internationally and grew a successful 40-person software and tech company with partners over 15 years in Wellington in the location intelligence sector exiting 2007. He joined NZ Trade and Enterprise as their first Māori manager executing a new growth strategy to boost Māori companies internationally. He brought together a portfolio of twenty-five leading Māori tech exporters and Māori sector investors, and coalesced these into a new network called Te Tira Toi Whakangao (or T3W in short). T3W launched this month and is helping jump-starting tech economies from regional Māori centres through the engine of Auckland to global markets. We are building deal flow by inspiring, by helping navigate pathways to success and partnering for capital support.

Barry is also a founder in TORO, the national centre of excellence for production, animation and technology, based in Gisborne. It delivers animation projects internationally and domestically, develops tech innovation and trains and educates students and workforce.

Barry also has a strong governance background in various Iwi, social and commercial boards.