On the 15th May 2019 Hon David Parker, Minister for Trade and Export Growth, Economic Development, Environment, and Associate Minister for Finance, and the Attorney-General, visited the Ackama office.

Our CEO, Breccan McLeod-Lundy, talked with Minister Parker about Ackama’s vision for making positive change in the world, namely that not all technology has to be about big sweeping changes – small, incremental changes to big systems can have a huge impact on citizens. We believe that New Zealand is well placed to build great systems for government that could be adapted for other countries.

McLeod-Lundy and Minister Parker talked about government procurement and the importance of making it possible for New Zealand businesses to build new and interesting solutions for government that creates Intellectual Property which can be used to drive the growth of business overseas. Such an arrangement makes it possible for kiwi businesses to win projects at the size and scale where the result could be a useful product that also helps other smaller countries that don’t have the means to invest in such technology locally.

Minister Parker was keen to learn more about how Ackama finds the type of work we do, with social purpose and, increasingly often, overseas in countries such as Timor, Fiji and Vanuatu.

The last couple of years have seen a lot of growth, acquisitions and even a renaming for Ackama, allowing us to bring more knowledge and experience to projects and giving us the financial buffer to take more risks. Along with Head of Consulting, Kimberly Brabazon, McLeod-Lundy talked about how we retain our social enterprise focus as we grow by maintaining a strong culture, encouraging diversity and being open about our values.