About The ICE Foundation

The Icehouse is owned by the International Centre for Entrepreneurship (ICE) Foundation. The ICE Foundation was established in 2001 for the purpose of advancing education to benefit the New Zealand economy and its communities.

The ICE Foundation has come a long way since its formation 20 years ago – helping many deserving organisations flourish and grow through donations and financial support to become a significant philanthropic leader for New Zealand’s business education sector.

Foundation Activities

The Foundation separates its activities into two categories – through the activities of The Icehouse (focusing on enabling Kiwi business owners and entrepreneurs to transform New Zealand’s economy) and specific Foundation activities.  

These include: 

• Education on entrepreneurship and business growth in tertiary and related environments  
• Conducting research and issuing publications on business growth
• Supporting events, seminars and conferences on business growth  
• Any other activity which is beneficial to the community and is charitable in nature 

Ever evolving, in recent years the Foundation has started to support activities which include:  

• Research on business growth – small co-funded projects for researchers exploring factors of growth in small to medium business in NZ
• Academic fellowships – co-funding of emerging academics who can learn from the best academics in business growth and develop a teaching and research agenda through their career  
• Student mentoring and scholarships – co-funding of the entrepreneurship activities that create an environment of learning and advancement in critical skills for the future for our student population  
• Scholarships to support PhD students enrolled undertaking academic research in a topic which has the potential to impact on growing businesses in New Zealand

Beneficiaries of supported programmes will normally be:

• The owners/founders/managers of SMEs and start-ups that have operations or a substantive connection to New Zealand; or  
• students and staff at universities and other tertiary education institutions within New Zealand, including students in Doctoral or Masters programmes undertaking research relevant to the purpose of the Foundation; or 
• students of secondary school age and staff at Secondary Schools within New Zealand, and other individuals of typical secondary school age; or  
• primary school age children, but this is a lesser priority than those above.  
• communities in NZ whose economic and living standard would be enhanced. 

Recent projects and activities supported: 

• Young Enterprise – Roaming teacher initiative designed to upskill and support secondary school Business Studies teacher. 

• Te Whare Hukahuka – Supported their programme focussed on enabling Iwi based organisations transform their leadership. 
• University of Auckland – Innovation and entrepreneurship resource hub 
• Manurewa High School - Contribution towards running the start-up you programme 
• The NZ Dance Company - Move Your Learning - support research on determining the impact in transforming learners with difficulties in the development of creative problem solvers, innovators, great thinkers, and achievers 
• University of Auckland –2 ICE Foundation PHD scholarships set up to support students studying business impacts and influences shaping the NZ SME market 

Some Of Our Recipients