Approximately 50 senior students from our Instep secondary schools entering the yia! and YES programmes have attended a breakfast workshop to train their innovation muscles.

Hosted by the University of Waikato, students will undoubtedly reap the rewards of conversing with local experts in the areas of product development, innovation, brand and videography. Giving generously of their time were Bevan Wait of Ranga Beer, Phil Harris of Woods Agency, David Recordon of Recordon DP, and Karl Stevenson of Virtuo. Drawing from the students’ questions, the facilitators tailored their workshops to the needs of each group – the overall aim being to help improve the quality of entries for the 2021 editions for both yia! and YES.

Being the first time this event has run, we’ll be interested to see what kind of impact it makes for these students and the handful of teachers who attended to support them.

Run as a joint initiative between Priority One and Venture Centre, the event represented the synergy between these two hugely valuable programmes – yia! and YES – that focus primarily on innovation education. It’s a collaboration we at Priority One look forward to continuing in order to meet the inexhaustible need for innovation skills to take our region’s people and economy forward.