New Zealand Innovations SEPTEMBER Newsletter
Kia Ora friends! We would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the remarkable New Zealand lockdown over the past month. So let’s start with a perspective from our Auckland based partner Mark before we move on to all the good things that follow from there. And here are some impressive statistics about covid vaccinations in New Zealand.
New Zealand does it again!
After coming into the country exactly 18 months ago right when covid was beginning to rear its head globally Mark watched Kiwis in tight coordination with the government go into a quick and stringent lockdown. The border was closed and all flights into the country cancelled. In less than 2 months, New Zealand was able to get the nascent pandemic under control in the country and do something that's not been replicated anywhere else in the world since: completely eliminate covid from its shores.
Since then, a managed quarantine process was set up and returning kiwis could come back if they booked a slot to sit in a hotel for 2 weeks and get tested for covid. There were small flare ups as some transmission was inevitable from returning kiwis, but they had all been quickly squashed through fast and effective lockdowns lasting only weeks.
In this context, it was especially concerning when the first community case of covid was detected over 6 weeks ago. Realizing that it was the highly contagious delta variant, New Zealand went into another strict lockdown after detecting just 1 case. This was laughed at and ridiculed in many parts of the world that have come to accept covid as a normal part of life. Many folks were pessimistic that the Delta variant could be stopped with just lockdowns and many locals were angry that they'd need to endure another indefinite period of lockdown. However the result has been as surprising as it has been inspiring.
Cumulative vaccinations
Over the past 6 weeks, throughout lockdown, New Zealand went from less than 20% of the population having even a single dose of the vaccine to over 80%. In cities like Auckland that number is even higher. The tandem approach of vaccination + lockdown has virtually eliminated delta from New Zealand in another global first. Most of the country has returned to normal and Auckland will exit the lockdown in another week or so.
While New Zealand's ability to completely close its borders coupled with it's low population density and relatively compliant population has helped, but the ability to marshall all resources and get population buy-in was a herculean effort that has not been replicated in any other sizable nation to date. Having such a high percent of the population vaccinated is also leading the way for a more relaxed border policy in the coming months. Based on what the government has promised, the border will be open with some restrictions by the end of Q1 of 2022.
This is part of the reason we are so bullish and excited about New Zealand's place in the world as an innovative, cohesive and highly functional society compared to many other parts of the world. And another reason why we think more founders will come here to build their next thing and local companies will benefit from an ever smaller global village we live in.
Startup of the month: Sahha
Sahha is a mobile app that once installed on your phone allows your phone to passively follow your mental health and alert you for the risk of depression. The fundamental idea is that you actually begin to manifest signs of depression much earlier than it is clinically diagnosable and by tracking these things passively you can get some early warning signs and treat it at a much earlier stage. In the research, the two behavioral markers that have consistently scored high in correlation with a depressive state are sleep and location, which is why they have chosen those two behavioral markers for their app.
They are targeting the B2B market of mental health companies and others who want to understand and help their employees. This market is on track to grow to $20B by 2025. No other product on the market currently analyzes the passive phone data to predict mental health outcomes, partially because the research is only now coming out. By being the first mover in the market, Sahha has the opportunity to develop the most predictive models and set up a very large moat around the business.
We believe that in the future health will be monitored passively and treatments will be administered preemptively before there’s an onset of symptoms. Sahha is the cutting edge of this paradigm shift and we are happy to join them in this journey!
Fun fact about NZ: Did you know…
…that Amazon Web Services (AWS) made New Zealand its next innovation hub by announcing its plan to launch its first data centre region in New Zealand by 2024, which entails a NZ$7.5 billion investment in the country over the next 15 years. This is likely to translate into 1,000 new jobs in New Zealand.
And just yesterday, the Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods announced that Dawn Aerospace and Merlin Labs are joining the Airspace Integration Trials Programme, in order “to accelerate the safe integration of advanced drones into our aviation system.” Dawn is based out of Christchurch and develops reusable space-launch infrastructure and green propulsion systems for satellites. Merlin, based in the US, is known for its cutting edge autonomous aviation technologies. This is great news for New Zealand which has been fertile ground for development and testing of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) systems.
Best regards,
Mark Pavlyukovskyy, Ajay Gupta, and Glen Anderson