Rewa Ake - “to be elevated higher”

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The Kiwi Innovation Network working in partnership with The Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge (SfTI) are pleased to bring you:

Rewa Ake – EndUser Discovery Workshop Series

Rewa Ake is a free online workshop series focusing on end user/customer engagement & Discovery for entrepreneurial researchers. Rewa Ake will help you elevate your idea and get out there to find your market.

This is an ideal workshop series for researchers who are considering or engaged with developing an idea to market-readiness and who want to get more out of their industry-engagement.

Venue: Online
Format: Three half-day sessions (9am-1pm) with homework
Date: 5,6 & 28 March 2024.
Registrations Close: 1 March 2024
Note: Places are limited.

Register for future workshops

Customer Discovery Workshops

You can boil down commercialisation into three functional fundamentals: marketing, production and finance. Marketing itself breaks down into many important areas, but key is understanding who is likely to want and pay for the idea. This can be daunting so KiwiNet and SfTI have teamed up with Ian Storie for an experiential online, part time four- week workshop series to demystify this activity.

This workshop series will cover processes around framing customer-centric conversations, developing searching questions, active listening, language and positioning, customer discovery, segmentation and feedback.

Pre-workshop questions and interim practical
We have designed this workshop series to maximise your experiential learning, and to allow researchers from around the country to participate. The more you put in, the more you take out. Over the three weeks, between workshop 2 and 3,there is an expectation for you to talk to 10 or more prospective customers.

Upon registration we will send out a short summary of the program and acquire more information to help prepare for the series.

Seumas McCroskery and/or Enrico Tronchin will be available to answer any questions or discuss your ideas prior to session 1 of Rewa Ake.

This KiwiNet and SfTI sponsored workshop is for
those wanting to get more out of their industry engagement activities.

Led by external consultant Ian Storie alongside Enrico Tronchin (SfTI, Commercialisation and Development Manager) Raewyn Tse (Manager, Capacity Development Programme & Events, SfTI) and Seumas McCroskery (Entrepreneurship Lead KiwiNet).

Ian Storie
Ian Storie

Course Facilitator

Ian Storie is an independent consultant who has worked with both KiwiNet and SfTI for the past three years. Ian specialises in collaboration best practice and large account management having worked with hundreds of organisations and over 2,000 researchers, scientists, engineers and professional staff across ANZ, India, South Africa, USA, UK, Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Ian has worked as a senior business development, client alliance and strategic marketing professional at organisations including General Electric, Siemens and CSIRO developing technology, research and engineering driven market segments including Education, Mining & Manufacturing, Agtech, Power & Water, Food & Beverage, Petrochemical & Refining, Healthcare & Pharma and Primary industries. Ian also has a long history of facilitating collaborations amongst Research Institutions, Multinationals, SMEs, State & Federal Government Departments, NGOs, NFPs and VC/start-ups globally.

Draft Agenda

(Zoom links will be circulated close to time)

30min Pre-Workshop Briefing (ask questions etc) – Choice of Tuesday 27th, Wednesday 28th or Thursday 29th Feb

key dates

Day 1 - Online

8.45am-8.55am Introduction to Rewa Ake program
8.55am-9.10am Customers, Problems, Ecosystems 
9.10am-9.30am Defining “customers”, 
9.30am-10.00am Uncovering customer “Problems” 
10.00am-10.30am Breakout session
10.30am-10.50am Break
10.50am-11.10am Emotional brain vs rational brain
11.10am-11.30pm Recognising “confirmation bias” 
11.30am-12.20pm Step by step process for customer engagement 
12.20pm-12.40pm The Maori economy as an important ecosystem 
12.40pm-12.50pm Conclusion of Workshop 1

Day 2 - Online

8.45am-8.50am Welcome back
8.50am-9.10am Translation Science to Business- knowing your audience
9.10am-9.30am Researching, identifying, prioritising and then engaging potential customers 
9.30am-9.50am Speaking the language and understanding the priorities of non-researcher “customers”
9.50am-10.10am How best to communicate 
10.10am-10.30am How to hold a customer conversation
10.30am-10.50am  Break
10.50am-11.20am Breakout workshops 
11.20am-11.40am Capturing, distilling themes
11.40am-12.00pm What's expected during the next three weeks (customer interviews, mentor meetings and dashboards) 
12.00pm-12.30pm Breakout workshops 
12.30pm-12.45pm Conclusion of workshop 2

Other Work

During the time between day 2 and day 3 attendee requirements and the time resourcing (each week) to support the delivery of customer conversations is outlined below: remember this is putting into practice what's been learnt in Workshops #1 and #2.

  • There will be three opportunities each week (30 minutes each week) to catch up with mentor meetings to support customer conversation preparation and execution
  • Expectations to have three customer conversations undertaken each week to practice, learn and adapt (can be up to 3 hours total each week). Prepare to give feedback to cohort during Workshop #3
  • Updating and posting your customer conversation dashboards for mentor review, on-going feedback, suggestions to improve conversations and to support weekly mentor calls (30 minutes each week).

At the end of week 3 prepare to give a 10 minute summary of your customer conversations (using dashboard tool (provided) as your talking slide)

Day 3 - Online

8.45am-8.50am Welcome back
8.50am-9.20am Dashboard time prior to presentations
9.20am-10.30am Breakout workshops
10.30am-10.50am Break
10.50am-12.00pm Breakout workshops into groups to discuss Key insights
12.00pm-12.30pm Program reflections and where to next?
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