BizDojo CEO Jonah Merchant talks to the combined BizDojo & GridAKL resident community at the first BizDojo morning tea at GridAKL – Lysaght. 

From February, BizDojo will be taking on a lease for the co-working space at the GridAKL Innovation Precinct  in the new Lysaght Building. This means a couple of things, the biggest being that the current GridAKL residents will turn into BizDojo residents, and later on be joined by the rest of the BizDojo Auckland crew.

What does this mean for GridAKL?
As Auckland’s Innovation Precinct at Wynyard Quarter GridAKL will  continue to be a convergence point for the tech and innovation ecosystem. The team at GridAKL will still support your projects, host events and meetups and share info you need to know. The event-space and GridAKL ‘tech cafe space’ in The Lysaght building will still be GridAKL, and operated (like the event space in Polperro) by the team from BizDojo. The wider plan for GridAKL will continue to be shaped by ATEED with a spirit of collaboration.

But now the workspaces where the resident companies do their thing will be an entirely BizDojo space, as opposed to a GridAKL space operated on behalf of ATEED by BizDojo as it was previously.

Tracy Moyes [General Manager for BizDojo NZ] is looking forward to this next step, “the original GridAKL space in the Polperro building really was a test bed, and it is exciting that only two years later the operation of the workspaces within this first inception of GridAKL is ready to be handed over to the private sector.”

The increased diversity in the resident pool will be great for GridAKL
One of the biggest learnings that those involved in the first phase of GridAKL at Polperro have taken onboard is the need for diversity. Whilst getting a bunch of like-minded folks into a room offers great support and learning initiatives, you really need differing viewpoints, skills and ways of attacking a problem to get true innovative solutions. BizDojo taking on a lease for the co-working  space and moving the current BizDojo resident population to GridAKL ensures (amongst other things) that the resident population is diverse. The strong tech focus will remain, but will be supported with amazing innovative and creative thinkers, freelancers and small business owners from areas as diverse as illustration, product development and marketing.

Next step, finishing the build and getting our new residents settled
The next big step is getting our new home to a finished state, and then moving our new residents in. Then we will be able to ascertain if we have space for new residents, and reach out to those who may be interested in joining the community. The BizDojo team will be revealing pricing and desk options for the new space too over on their website.