Legal Structures and Relationships
Techvana has adopted a unique structure that combines a Charitable Trust and Equity Crowd Funded operations company and was designed with the following goals…
- Enable people with an interest in IT heritage to invest and own part of the Museum.
- Provide separation between the collections / assets and the Museum operations.
- Raise working capital for the Operations Company via the sale of shares to investors.
- Enable collectors who loan their pieces / collections to the Museum to receive a commercial return.
- Enable supporters to either donate to the Charitable Trust or purchase a sponsorship package from the Operations Company depending on their individual goals, requirements or what the specifically want to support.
- As Techvana expands to other countries, a new charitable trust will be setup for each country to hold their heritage assets.
Techvana Charitable Trust
- Acquires and owns the collections including those donated and undertakes restorations.
- Curates and stores the collections.
- Captures and publishes NZ tech stories. Possibly create a Documentary from the interviews and media.
- Designs and manages the education programmes.
- Designs and owns the exhibitions.
- Runs the Museum membership.
Techvana Operations Limited
- Has an exclusive license to market the Charitable Trusts Assets and provides a revenue stream to the Charitable Trust.
- Operates the Museum and its facilities.
- Loans pieces and collections from other collectors for exhibits.
- Markets and manages the sponsorship packages and sponsors.
- Markets and manages the events and functions.
- Markets the exhibition space to new NZ tech companies for exhibiting their new developments.
- Markets and tours the exhibitions nationally and globally.
Techvana has many people working to make it a reality…
Techvana Operations Limited
Mark Barlow – Managing Director / Chief Executive / Project Director – https://nz.linkedin.com/in/markalistairbarlow/
Mark Barlow has 35 years of IT experience and has owned his own IT businesses for over 22 years. Mark started using computers at the age of 10 and was programming in BASIC and Z80 assembly language by 12. A passionate gamer Mark started on Zork on the Apple 2 and is currently playing Halo4 on the Xbox 360 and Destiny on the Xbox One. He has been collecting computers since the beginning and still has his original ZX81 and about 1,000 other computer, telecommunications and gaming artefacts.
Katie Barlow – Director / Project Co-ordinator – https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiebarlownz
Katie Barlow is Mark’s long suffering wife and has put up with his collection for over 23 years. Katie is passionate about getting the museum up and going because of the joy she has seen in others faces when they see Mark’s collection, and because she would really like to get her house back! An experienced sales and marketing executive, Katie will be working on the sponsorship sales and events management.
Ray Barlow – Director / Chairman – https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=67933118
Ray Barlow is a member of the Institute of Directors and has 30 years’ experience as a senior executive reporting to Boards and 5 years as a director and 3 years as chair of a start-up. Ray has run his own marine consultancy business. He has been involved in the due diligence process for major acquisitions and the assessment and economic justification for major projects. Ray was involved in developing and executing the port reform process which saw the ‘corporatisation’ of New Zealand ports and the rationalisation of the waterfront labour arrangements nationally. Ray was a founder member of the New Zealand Maritime Pilots Association and served as president for six years, representing pilots in deliberations with central government and internationally. He remains a member and also a member of the Nautical Institute and the New Plymouth West Rotary Club.
Michael Travis – https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=19646091
Michael Travis (BA / LLB (Hons)) is one of our valued advisors. He has a background in commercial law, specialising in IT. He is currently General Counsel of the Yellow Pages Group, overseeing their ongoing transformation to a digital business, and has previously worked for Yahoo! (in the UK, Australia and Singapore) and Sohonet (UK). A keen technologist, Michael experimented with BASIC programming on the Commodore 128D, published his first commercial website in 1996, and currently enjoys digital filmmaking and music production. Michael will be producing/directing a documentary about the Techvana Computer Museum and the history of New Zealand digital innovation. See www.michaeltravis.net for more.
From top left… Mark Barlow, Michael Travis, Katie Barlow, Ray Barlow
Techvana Charitable Trust
Mark Barlow – Trust Board Chairman (interim – we are looking for an independent professional trustee for this role)
Katie Barlow – Trust Board
Other Advisors…
Roger Bennett – Vice President AucklandICT
Bob Pinchin – Board Member NZ Technology Industry Association
Ray Delaney – President Institute of IT Professionals
Ben Kenobi – Board Member NZ Game Developers Association / AUT
John Pratt – Author “Machines that Count”
Bob Doran – Auckland University
Michael Davidson – Video game collector
John Humphrey – Global Telecommunications Expert