WellyForge - 13th August 2025

Forging a dynamic, vibrant, science & city innovation culture

Author

Ralph Highnam
August 13, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

Hello Everyone:

Thanks to those that have contributed to the Ecosystem Map, we’ve added two robotics companies in Petone, an new OS company in Miramar, and others. Please check that map and feedback, if your company is currently on Soames island, it’s not because we don’t love you, it’s because we don’t know where your office is!!

We’re learning so much doing that map - the robotics companies, finding out that Vic Uni has the biggest AI department in the southern hemisphere, learning about Massey design & innovation and so on. All the pieces are coming into place.

WellyForge3 with the WCC mayoral candidates is next Weds (Aug 20th). Good to see Diane Calvert wanting to “champion Wellington’s strengths in the arts, tech, science, film…”. If you have tickets but cannot come please let me know asap because we have a big waiting list. I’m very pleased to say JD Trask’s new venture AutoHive, “who let you build AI agents the easy way”, are sponsoring the event. FULL INFO & WAITING LIST.

Of the events below, please note especially the just announced StartUp World Cup event in Kapiti on 9th October - let’s bring that $1m home to Wellington!

Rule #1 - Celebrate the Wins

  • Drum roll for Volition for closing a $450k pre-seed raise!! Well done to Erika Butters for finishing that, and for doing amazing work supporting disabled people - well worth the WellyForge cup she will now receive!

  • Booking tickets for the Academy Prize for Visual Art at Takina (which is excellent, btw) I noticed the ticketing is done by Eventa, one of Alex Matthew’s many amazing adventures from his Cuba St base - well done to Eventa for getting Takina on-board, and well done to Takina for going with (high quality) local [TICKETS]

  • KiwiNet (which commercializes publicly funded research) announced the 2025 finalists for their annual awards - Dr Rubio-Reyes from the Malaghan, Dr Ben Mallett from Robinson Research, Wellumio for stroke detection and the Malaghan for CAR-T Therapy are all in the running for prizes.

  • Game Developers of Wellington headed up by Rick Stemm from PikPok held an outstanding fireside chat with veteran US game designer Ron Gilbert last week “if you want to get into games, just start making them”, even better is that Ron now lives in Wellington and is very approachable (we’ll take that as a win).

  • One of the advantages of being in Wellington is the Royal Society hosts events such as the “Falling Walls” event with the German embassy. 21 pitches from researchers across NZ about which wall they want to demolish, be it chronic pain, carbon emissions and so on. Very high quality, watch out for it next year:

  • We also get front row seats for events such as those promoting our need to understand and grasp opportunity with quantum technologies, and excellent events around infrastructure and quantum technologies which suggest areas where we can get future wins. This photo is Cathy Foley, former Chief Scientist in Australia talking at Parliament:

And recent media coverage:

Rule #2 - Meet the Locals

Weds Aug 13th, NZ Energy Excellence Awards in Wellington

Weds Aug 13th, 6-7.30pm, Professor Richard Beasley will be talking at the Royal Society about his research and how it has directly influenced patient care especially around asthma. [TICKETS]

Thurs Aug 14th, 5.30pm, “Shipping GenAI products that actually work”, experienced product guru Suhel Mangera taking us through how he works today [TICKETS]

Thurs Aug 14th, 7.30pm, Geoscience Society of NZ President’s Lecture at Victoria - “Martian monsters, giant landslides, and recipes for disaster” [INFO]

Fri Aug 15th, 4-5.30pm, “Impact of AI on Assessments and Student Learning” being held at Rutherford House by Vic Uni [INFO]

Mon Aug 18th, 5.30pm, at Victoria, “Earthquake science at the cutting edge” [TICKETS]

Tues Aug 19th, 4pm, “AI in the Boardroom” at BNZ Place, hosted by Serge van Dam but with speakers from Autohive, Law Cyborg, and Tutaki [INFO]

Weds Aug 20th, 7.30am, “Responsible AI - what does the mean in practice?”, by InternetNZ [TICKETS]

Weds Aug 20th, 1-2pm, AI in Mediation and Arbitration at Denton’s on Bowen Street [INFO]

Weds Aug 20th, 6-8pm, WellyForge3 with Peter Griffin and the mayoral candidates for Wellington City - what are their plans for economic prosperity and how do they see science & tech playing into them? [WAITLIST]

Mon-Thurs Aug 25-28th, ANZ Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Conference [TICKETS]

Weds-Fri, Aug 27th-30th, RustForge is in Wellington run by Tim McNamara

Weds Aug 27th, 5-7pm, Critical Signals - “Songs for my Chatbot” [TICKETS]

Thur Aug 28th, 5.30pm, Tawhaki Special Use Airspace “The Journey” - Aero Society talk by Adam Houston at the CAA, Asteron Centre. [INFO]

Weds Sept 3rd, 5.30-7pm, The Future of Insurance by Jonathan Boston from Vic at the amazing Critical Signals [INFO]

Thurs Sept 4th, 5.30pm, “The Beauty of Uncertainty”, inaugural lecture by Prof Ivy Liu of the Maths & Stats department at Victoria [TICKETS]

Weds Sept 10th, 5pm, Upper Hutt Mayor Candidates talking business [TICKETS]

Weds Sept 17th, 5pm, Hutt City Mayor Candidates talking business [TICKETS]

Sept 25-27th, NZGDC 2025, the NZ Game Developers Conference at Takina

Thurs Oct 9th, 5-8.30pm, Startup World Cup, NZ Final hosted in Kapiti - apply via CreativeHQ by 5th September [DETAILS]

Oct 10-12th, Startup Weekend Wellington at Rutherford House [LINKEDIN]

Nov 19th-21st, Synbio (synthetic biology) is at Te Papa, organized by Mark Calcott

Fri-Sun Nov 21-23rd, Shed 6, Kiwi PyCon (Python!) [DETAILS]

Recurring Events:

The Atom at Victoria is open for any unfunded Founders (Students, Early Stage, Idea Stage) and is run by Entrepreneur in Residence, Adiraj Gupta - Email [email protected] , or join the Facebook community.

Reminders:

Rule #3 - Understand the Wider Environment

Rule #4 - Your Local Community Index

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