Stoke-based digital marketing business owner, Marina Kere, is “super excited” to gain more business and technology experience from Asia to apply back home in New Zealand.
The 25-year-old has been awarded a Prime Minister’s Scholarship for study in Asia.
Marina established KDM Digital in 2019, which offers brand awareness growth through website design and social media.
She says a study tour for young business and technology leaders to China last year piqued her interest in Asia business culture, and the scholarship has given her another opportunity to experience it through an eight-week business development internship in Singapore.
“[China] helped me gain a different perspective on the way of doing things,” she says.
“Their technologies in their businesses are really advanced, and there’s ways that we can incorporate that in New Zealand a bit more.
“When I go on [the Singapore internship], I’ll see what I can learn from it and take that learning of how businesses are run and put it back into my business.”
The scholarship contributes to all Marina’s costs of the internship, flights, accommodation, visa, and travel and medical insurance costs, as well as brokerage fees of the approved internship providers.
She says she is currently in talks with companies in Singapore to find the best platform to undertake her internship before she travels to Asia’s Garden City in June.
“[The scholarship] means a lot to me because me and my family haven’t had much experience overseas,” she says.
“I’m Māori too, so I hope that it can also encourage other rangatahi and other people who haven’t had that much experience overseas to go and grab those opportunities.”
The Prime Minister’s scholarships are awarded each year and will see 114 recipients heading to varius destinations.
Some of the destinations include Japan, Korea, Malaysia, China, India, Vietnam, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Chile for study and internship programmes over the next 12 months.
