Date: Friday 1st September
Time: 1:55pm
In May 2023 the NZ Government announced a rebate for the game development sector, effective as of 1 April 2023. Come and hear from MBIE and NZ On Air about what’s on offer for NZ studios and how the sector has been involved to date.
Speakers Sarah Box (MBIE) and Amie Mills (NZ on Air)
About the speakers
Sarah Box is a Principal Policy Advisor (Digital Policy) at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. She currently works on the Digital Technologies Industry Transformation Plan, in particular game development and artificial intelligence, and contributes more broadly to work related to the Digital Strategy for Aotearoa.
Prior to joining MBIE in March 2022, Sarah worked for 16 years at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In her last role, as Senior Counsellor in the Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation, she worked with the senior management team to oversee the strategic direction, work programme and outputs of the Directorate, which spanned digital economy policy, science, technology and innovation policy, oceans and space, productivity and business dynamics, industrial policy, steel and shipbuilding. She coordinated critical workstreams including artificial intelligence and was involved in the establishment of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence. Sarah also advised on and developed deliverables for the digital streams of the G7 and G20.
Sarah has also worked as a Senior Research Analyst at the Australian Productivity Commission and an Analyst at the New Zealand Treasury. She holds Master of Commerce and Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degrees in Economics from the University of Auckland.
Amie Mills is the Head of Funding at NZ On Air, an independent government funding agency delivering public media to local audiences. She is responsible for ensuring funding decision making is integrated, future focused, transparent, and relevant to audiences in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Amie has worked in the media industry in Aotearoa and abroad for over 10 years in a range of commissioning, creative and digital production roles. She is the former Digital & Children’s Commissioner at TVNZ. In 2015 she joined Saatchi & Saatchi London to help deliver a BAFTA-winning mobile game, Sea Hero Quest, to help scientists fight dementia with the world’s largest crowd-sourced database for medical research.
