Empowering entrepreneurial engineers for an ever-evolving landscape
Engineers are inherently excellent problem-solvers. How do we take this to the next step and empower our future engineers to innovate the world of tomorrow?
As the world evolves and global challenges emerge, so do industry demands. From the urgent need to develop new ideas for technology to revolutionise healthcare delivery, to the emergence of artificial intelligence to streamline operations, innovative solutions are essential to keep up with the world’s growing and changing needs.
Being problem-solvers at heart, engineers are known for their ability to innovate and create impactful solutions to the world’s challenges. With their technical knowledge and analytical skills, engineers drive groundbreaking innovations that make a real difference in society.
The Faculty of Engineering has established relationships with industry leaders across various sectors. This includes Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, one of the leading pioneers in the global healthcare technology industry, and where many of our graduates go on to work.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare continues to expand globally, with their respiratory products being used across the globe and impacting the lives of millions of patients every year. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they continued supplying patients with products that helped with obstructive sleep apnea, provided respiratory support in their homes, and their Optiflow™ nasal high flow therapy emerged as one of the leading frontline treatments for COVID-19 patients.
With innovation and collaboration at the core of their organisational culture, working at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare provides our graduates with the opportunity to work with experts in the field, gain exposure to cutting-edge technologies and innovative practices, assist in the development of groundbreaking products, and ultimately contribute to improving patient outcomes and addressing the health needs of people all around the world.
The University of Auckland is ranked as the leading university in New Zealand for graduate employability, according to the QS Graduate Employability Rankings for 2022. Our Engineering graduates often go on to work in research and development departments of prominent companies, in addition to Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, including Fonterra, Downer, Rocket Lab, Air New Zealand and more companies both within New Zealand and abroad. After gaining invaluable experience within these companies, many of our graduates choose to test the waters and venture out to start a company of their own.
A thriving tech landscape for Aotearoa's aspiring entrepreneurs
The technology sector is one of Aotearoa’s fastest growing industries. Our country also ranks first out of 141 countries when it comes to macroeconomic stability, as reported by the World Economic Forum’s 2019 Global Competitiveness Report, reflecting an ideal environment for individuals to pursue entrepreneurial activity and grow their start-ups.
With a small, yet diverse population of early adopters, as well as being one of the world’s highest internet users, New Zealand makes for an excellent location for testing new technology in a contained market before wider release.
New Zealand also offers a vast amount of support for aspiring entrepreneurs. Callaghan Innovation is the country’s government agency for innovation, helping to accelerate the growth of hi-tech businesses across the nation.
The agency’s Founder and Startup Support Programme delivers free initiatives by their partner organisations, helping to place founders and early-stage ventures in a stronger position to grow their business. The initiatives include investment-readiness, hands-on mentorship and training, entrepreneurial capability-building, and startup development, and aim to continue contributing to growing the number of tech startups in Aotearoa.
Who are some of our Engineering graduates pursuing entrepreneurship and leveraging technology to reshape the way we live and work?
Craig Piggott: Transforming dairy farming through agritech company, Halter
With a solid foundation in food production, a flourishing technology industry and a commitment to sustainable solutions, New Zealand has established a highly advanced and innovative agritech sector, making the country an attractive destination for turning revolutionary agritech ideas into reality.
Craig Piggott, University of Auckland alumnus who studied Mechanical Engineering, is the founder and CEO of Halter, a rapidly growing New Zealand agritech exporter that is transforming dairy farming and changing the lives of farmers.
Halter is on a mission to empower more productive and sustainable farmers. With Halter, farmers grow and harvest more grass, increase milk production and improve their cows’ wellbeing.
Halter’s system comprises a solar-powered collar per cow, a mobile app for the farmer, and a communication network per farm. Halter trains cows to respond to the collar’s guidance cues. This allows farmers to remotely shift their cows around the farm, set up virtual fences and continuously monitor their cows’ health and location.
Through his study journey, Craig developed the understanding of how engineering is really just “problem-solving that challenges the status quo”.
I learnt early on that to problem-solve successfully in engineering, you must adopt a ‘first principles’ mentality; the practice of questioning every assumption you think you know about a given problem, then creating new solutions from the ground up. I grew up on a dairy farm and could not ignore the fact that certain aspects of farming had been slow, labour intensive and inefficient for decades.
“My study helped me understand the power of a first principles mindset and inspired me to ask ‘how could we do things differently?’ to manage a farm.”
The desire to transform the way we farm was the reason Craig started Halter. “It also formed a compelling reason for how we attracted world-class team members to help solve problems, and of course it helped to attract tier one investors— a key ingredient for accelerating our progress.”
Craig has been recognised for the positive impact he is creating in the agritech industry through Halter, making it on the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list for Industry, Manufacturing & Energy. Halter was also awarded as the Most Innovative Hi-Tech Agritech Solution at the 2023 NZ Hi-Tech Awards.
When Halter launched in 2016, the team’s vision was to unlock the connection between humans and animals, and in the past seven years, they’ve successfully achieved this through the way farmers manage their dairy cows. Today, Halter is devoted to enabling farmers to run more productive and sustainable farms.
“Over the next 5-10 years, we hope to inspire thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of farmers around the world to adopt more innovative and efficient ways of farming with Halter. This is more than just our team mission at Halter; change like this is vital given the world is at a critical juncture— if we’re going to keep feeding our growing population, we need to do so in a more environmentally sustainable way.”
Ang Nayyar: StrutFit revolutionising online shopping with AI innovation
Former University of Auckland Software Engineering student, Ang Nayyar, recognised the growing trend of people making the switch to online shopping— an undeniable convenience offering an expansive array of product choices that surpasses those found in a traditional brick-and-mortar store. But the inability to try-on clothing and footwear before purchasing means bringing in the guesswork when it comes to choosing sizes. Ang and fellow University of Auckland Engineering graduate, Nish Nimmagadda, created the perfect solution to this dilemma.
Ang is the CEO and co-founder of StrutFit, an AI-powered tool he developed with his co-founder Nish, that helps online shoppers find perfectly-sized shoes by simply scanning their feet using their smartphone camera. StrutFit seamlessly integrates into a store’s website, calculating exact foot measurements and matching them up to the specific product that a customer desires, further providing a personalised size recommendation suited to them.
Through studying Software Engineering, Ang feels that this definitely helps with running his own software company.
Even though I’m fairly hands off with the tech now, it’s clear that having a CEO who understands development and can trust and verify what’s happening is useful for the company. Aside from that, it’s all trial and error. Having a mentor helps, but you’ll still make mistakes and learning on the job is the best, perhaps the only, way to learn.
Alongside his studies in Engineering, Ang participated in the Velocity entrepreneurship programme run by the University of Auckland Business School’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), where StrutFit was born.
The CIE supports the next generation of entrepreneurs through programmes, events, workshops, and facilities offered through their innovation hub and maker space, which are freely available to all University students and staff, no matter their field of study or expertise. The CIE’s Velocity programme provides opportunities for students to earn funding for their ideas, receive mentorship from industry leaders, build networks, and gain the inspiration and knowledge needed to launch and grow their ventures.
“The [Velocity] programme gave us a safe space to incept the idea, and then gave us a good imperative to go out and test the idea. The faster you can go and test your idea, the faster you can learn from action and apply your learnings to refine the idea.”
“The mentor we received through Velocity, Andrew Steel, has been an incredibly important figure in the development of StrutFit and my own personal development as an entrepreneur. This is perhaps one of the greatest features of the Velocity programme.”
“For anyone reading this— there’s absolutely no reason you can’t do this. The key insight I gained from this was that there are no rules, and the approach off the back of this is that you can do whatever you want. Make up the rules. Break the rules. Do whatever it takes to achieve your dream.”
Currently, StrutFit partners with UGG, HOKA, Vivobarefoot, Bobux, and Jo Mercer— just to name a few. Ang is confident in StrutFit's future and envisions the company transforming the retail industry forever.
“We have created the best solution for getting your size when shopping for footwear online. We will expand into doing this for apparel, and then create an in-store solution such that the omni-channel experience is seamless and magical. We’re collecting a lot of data that will help brands develop better products, order more efficiently, and stop sending shoes which will be returned – all of which is great for the end consumer, the retailer, and the environment.”
Entrepreneurs fuel economic growth through the creation of new products and services, which in turn create new job opportunities, open up new markets, and drive social change. Developing innovative skills and an entrepreneurial mindset are powerful tools to thrive in our rapidly changing world, whether that’s through working in a large global organisation or starting a new business venture.
The integration of entrepreneurship and engineering opens up a world of possibilities for people who want to make a real difference in society. We provide a wide range of opportunities for individuals to pursue entrepreneurship through postgraduate study in Engineering, including for those who may not come directly from an engineering background. The Faculty of Engineering is dedicated to empowering our students to become catalysts for change and innovation in our dynamic landscape.
Find out which Engineering masters programme might be right for you by taking our postgraduate Engineering quiz.