Kate de Ridder on building pathways towards deep tech.

Kate de Ridder discusses her vision for Bridgewest Ventures and how she hopes deep tech will contribute to the future of New Zealand.

"Diversity of thought makes a more well-rounded and sustainable business," said Kate de Ridder, Programme Manager at Bridgewest Ventures. 

To Kate, achieving more diversity in the kiwis who pursue science and technology roles is a leading driver for her personal involvement with Bridgewest Ventures. Her vision also aligns with the values and goals of Bridgewest, making her decision to work in the incubator an easy one.  

"Bridgewest Ventures cares about more than just margins. They look at the big picture of how much impact an idea can have and how it could be a game-changer for the world we live in—ultimately contributing to humanity's progress towards better living standards and lower planetary impact."

Kate is trained as an engineer and attributes much of her decision to pursue a technology-based field to an influential primary school teacher that encouraged her to explore her interest in science.

Laying down pathways to allow underrepresented groups to see their options in a scientific-field early on is important to Kate. These pathways can open up opportunities for someone to travel down a path and discover or work on a world-changing technology.

"You can't be, what you don't see," she says as she discussed hopes that we see more scientists and technologists, especially those who are women or Maori, held as highly as sports heroes across all forms of New Zealand media. 

As Programme Manager at Bridgewest Ventures, Kate looks after much of the day-to-day operations. This isn't the first time she's led a major project or worked with teams developing complex technologies. 

While training as an engineer at Canterbury University, Kate joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force, where she held many different engineering roles over a 17 year career in the service. One of her key roles was to manage the aircraft maintenance team at 40 Squadron, running transport operations into Antarctica, the pacific islands and other far off parts of the world. 

During this time she completed a Masters in Aerospace Vehicle Design in the UK. After that she returned home and took on a new role leading a team of engineers in developing an airborne surveillance system and integrated ground support mission systems. This role really piqued Kate's interest in product design as she communicated with stakeholders about system requirements to ensure the rolling system upgrades aided in the delivery of desired operational outcomes.

"This was a rewarding role," Kate reflected when asked about her past jobs. "It directly contributed to New Zealand's national security strategy by assisting in maintenance of regional and global stability."

Kate continued her career in the Air Force with a role that investigated how technical services were delivered. Here she worked with industrial psychologists to disrupt the more traditional technical operations in the organisation. Although she didn't see as much change as she hoped, she appreciated the experiences she gained and the insight into organisation change and disruption. 

From there, Kate made the jump to work within the incubator ecosystem in New Zealand in 2019 and completely fell in love with the huge impactful possibilities of deep tech. Through her role at Bridgewest Ventures, she sees an opportunity to bring world-changing technology to fruition in New Zealand. 

"When I look back at my career, I feel like it's been about impact investment. I measured impact and quantified largely qualitative results. This is true whether it was moving scientists safely to Antarctica, delivering aid to disaster ravaged islands, preventing narcotics and weapons smuggling in the Arabian Seas, or figuring out the best way for an organisation to deliver outcomes. In all of my roles, it's been about making a global contribution to furthering New Zealand’s national interests." 

At Bridgewest Ventures, Kate sees building a deep tech eco-system as another way to help New Zealand. It can provide an alternative, profitable, more sustainable industry to our traditional tourism or pastoral exports. She hopes it will allow us to improve our productivity, quality of life, and opportunities for the next generation. 

When asked what makes New Zealand innovation stand out compared to other parts of the world, Kate smiled and replied, "He waka eke noa - we’re all in this together. We have strong virtues and think as a team of 5-million. We are very conscious of one another." 

Over the next 8-years, while Bridgewest Ventures participates in Callaghan Innovation's Technology Incubator Programme, Kate's vision is to see growth in the nation's deep tech eco-system and movement for more diversity in the industry.