Sir Ray Avery to give innovation lecture at Albany

November 10, 2011

Sir Ray Avery to give innovation lecture at Albany

Scientist, social entrepreneur and inventor Sir Ray Avery will give a public lecture at Massey University’s Albany campus next month.

The 2010 New Zealander of the Year will examine New Zealand’s education, governmental and private research and innovation landscapes and discuss “the root causes of New Zealand’s poor Global Innovation Index”.

His lecture entitled Unlocking New Zealand's Knowledge Bank doubles as the opening address of Massey’s Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference on December 1.

Sir Ray will talk about what he terms “practical low-cost solutions for
implementation of customer-centric product realisation strategies” to raise our Global Innovation Index. He is founder and chief executive of the non-profit development agency Medicine Mondiale. He created affordable intraocular lenses that are implanted into eyes of people blinded by cataracts, to help them to see again. His technology is widely used in the developing world.

A two-day conference follows on the Albany campus with about 80 academics and practitioners from New Zealand and around the world.

Professor Eleanor Shaw, of Glasgow’s Strathclyde University, will give a keynote address on entrepreneurial philanthropy and discuss motivations for involvement of entrepreneurs in social change and the impact they have.

There will also be a panel discussion entitled Measuring Social Innovation and Impact: Issues, Problems and Solutions. The panel includes Vivian Hutchinson, chair of the New Zealand Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship, Sue Cooper, chief executive of Prometheus Finance, Maggie O'Caroll, chief executive of The Women's Organisation in the United Kingdom and David Earle from the Ministry of Education. Professor Peter Frumkin, a professor of public affairs and director of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the University of Texas in Austin, will also provide his insights on measurement of social enterprise performance at the conference.

The conference is organised by the New Zealand Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Centre. Its director Professor Anne de Bruin says social innovation and entrepreneurship will play an increasingly important role in the future. “When we launched the centre last year, Sir Ray Avery had just received his award and was bringing social entrepreneurship to the forefront of people’s minds. This public lecture will give people an opportunity to hear his story, the contribution he has made and his ideas for the future. To listen to someone who is a world leader in the field of social innovation will be an inspiring opening to our conference.”

Sir Ray’s public lecture will take place on the Albany campus from 6pm. Places are limited. Email Public-Lectures@massey.ac.nz to reserve a seat.

ENDS

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