Qtown’s billion-dollar tech plan and the man behind it
A plan to grow Queenstown’s technology sector into a billion-dollar industry is attracting international interest.
Businessman Roger Sharp launched Technology Queenstown to work with multi-national technology companies, educators and government to grow the sector.
Sharp, a technology sector entrepreneur, chair of Lotto NZ and WebJet, and a former deputy chair of Tourism NZ, said the idea was to diversify Queenstown’s tourism-dominant economy after the devastating effects of Covid-19.
“People’s livelihoods were being crushed ... companies were going bust, and people were borrowing against their mortgages. I felt like somebody had to do something,” he said.
Initially that meant spending hundreds of thousands of his own dollars, studying the industry.
He discovered the Queenstown Lakes District’s technology sector represented only 1.5% of local GDP, significantly less than the national average of 7.5%.
Sharp visited 12 alpine towns in the United States where he observed the underlying necessity of industry, academia and government co-operation supporting the industry.
International professional services company Accenture analysed Sharp’s findings and the possibilities of growing a substantial tech eco-system in the area.
It found the current tech workforce of about 900 people, could grow to 3000 by 2043 with another 5400 jobs indirectly supporting the industry.
A plausible scenario was to focus on sourcing 30% of workers locally – about 600 – and bringing in 1500 skilled workers, about 1 in 15 coming to the district.
That would boost the district’s tech ecosystem from $100 million in annual GDP to between $650 million and $1.3 billion.
Sharp believes the goal is achievable and expects Technology Queenstown will have a chief executive and small staff in the next few months to be actively pursuing the goals.
In the meantime, since the late-January launch of Technology Queenstown, he has been inundated with hundreds of messages from companies and individuals wanting to be involved, many contributing financially.
He is working with the University of Otago, which is establishing an increasing presence in Queenstown, particularly given the region’s airport has become the international gateway to the province.
The tourism-focused Queenstown Resort College is also involved, and has started new courses focused on Artificial Intelligence.
One of the biggest challenges is encouraging multi-national technology companies to establish a base in the region but he has strong interest from Accenture – a Fortune 500 company that employs 743,000 people around the world.
Sharp is also in talks with a “very large renewable energy company”.
“We’re trying to build up an understanding of what the corporate world wants and what the university can provide,” he said. “The university has leaned into this, with a vengeance.”
He does not expect Queenstown’s well-documented housing shortage to be problematic as large corporates will be able to negotiate their own deals and developments.
Also, workers did not have to live in Queenstown.
“You can live in Clyde, Luggate, Glenorchy ... You only have to go into the office twice a week, as long as you’ve got good fast broadband.”
The Queenstown Lakes District Council was contributing resources while a recent visit to Science Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins yielded moral support.
There would be a time when some government support would be needed but he was confident it would be possible to get started – even if it did mean 3am starts, for now.
The tourism industry remained at risk of pandemics and markets could disappear overnight, he said.
“It’s going to happen again and we’ve got an obligation to do something about it.”