LILIA ALEXANDER

Tash Gelato 

As part of level 3 business studies at HVHS, under the Young Enterprise Scheme, we had to create a business. Me and 3 others innovated to create a pineapple chunks gelato, which we had produced for us by Carrello del Gelato, and distributed to supermarkets and cafe's around New Zealand, also selling at local events with a cart. Our company won the Wellington regional title, and catered for the national event. The company is now running slowly on the side as our team has split across the country and now at university. We are all proud of what we accomplished in 2014 with Tash Gelato.

 

 

Illuno/Tribe Energy

In 2015, Creative HQ created a 6 week full time business accelerator/education course, held at the Victoria University design school. Venture Up. I applied, and was chosen as one of the 28 students selected from across NZ. During this time we met with many New Zealand CEO's, had many inspirational talks, and learnt a lot about how to start up a business. On day 1 we pitched our ideas to eachother, and formed teams. My team consisted of Ben Seelen, Bradley Hagan, Aditi Gorasia, Wilson Lesa and I. We built on and developed the idea of a healthy energy drink, with our main point of difference/advantage being the main ingredient, guayusa. Guayusa is a big thing in the US, with RUNA managing the majority of guayusa growing in Ecuador. After the 6 weeks, the team all went our separate ways, with one member now working on the concept separately. This was a great experience, and a great networking opportunity. Read about my experience here
http://www.ventureup.co.nz/ 


Loqum 

From the connections made through Creative HQ, I found out about the Start-up Weekends that are held globally. I luckily registered in time for the 2015 Start-up Weekend Wellington, where I met an amazing bunch of people, and formed my team with 6 others (see right). Our idea, is a location based content sharing app, that is restricted to the location of content creation. So you could go out to a cafe, take a photo of the experience, and choose to share it with your friends (facebook integration). Your friends would then only be able to see the photo if they go to the cafe themselves. You choose how long you want the photo to stay available for, whether that be a day, a week, or forever. You get to leave your trace wherever you go. The developers are currently working on the app.
http://startupweekend.co.nz/ 

 

 

 

YouCreate 

After seeing a gap in the NZ market for 3D printing pens, I am starting to import and sell the latest version of these pens, along with the plastic filaments that they use. I do this under the trading name "YouCreate" to encourage young people to create as much as they can to their imagination. This is a business I am running on the side of university studies.
www.youcreate.co.nz 
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Mentor - Shift Weekend May 2016

 

"Shift is a pilot project that aims to increase the physical activity and wellbeing of young Wellington women." 

"The key outcomes of the jam were for the young women to:
-Have fun,
-Learn about social entrepreneurship and Human-centered Design, 
-Come up with potential wellbeing solutions to raise money for the Give back, Shift forward fund."

 

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Judge - BizNinja 2016 

 

"BizNinja is a one day programme for year 10 students to introduce them to running a business, we use it as a insight day for our other programmes such as YES. Students come from a range of schools, they then create a business idea on a common theme and then present their work at the end of the day."

 

 

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President - Victoria Entrepreneurship Club

At the start of 2016 I picked up the Victoria Entrepreneurship Club from the dead and built a team around me, bringing in inspirational guest speakers on different topics, and bringing over 100 entrepreneural minded student members together through events to help them with their startups/ideas and to connect them with the people they need to get their ideas off the ground. As I decided to leave uni I have passed the club management on. 

 

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Marketing - Inspiring Stories / Festival For The Future

For several years I have been helping out at the Festival For The Future event which is a 2.5 day conference aimed at younger people (16 - 30) with lots of speakers and workshops related to the future of the New Zealand. In 2018 I took part in an internship role where I managed social media leading up to, and during the event. I also managed the Attendify app (the app for the event.) 

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Further ideas - always bubbling!

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I also love to travel and love using my 360 camera, and drone. I have started to make travel videos too. You can see my content on instagram.com/lilia.alexander.

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NOTE: I haven't updated this section for a few years - I've been involved in more things, which you can read about on my LinkedIn.

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