WellyForge - 23rd July 2025

Forging a dynamic, vibrant, science & city innovation culture

Author

Ralph Highnam
July 23, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

Hello Everyone:

WellyForge2, sponsored by Litmaps, on 30th July is now sold out but we do have a WAITLIST. The speaker from OpenStar Technologies is now confirmed as CEO & founder Dr Ratu Mataira - full details below.

WellyForge3 on 20th Aug, with the WCC mayoral candidates talking about the economy, science & tech is taking shape but we won’t have a full speaker list until candidates formally declare on 1st Aug - TICKETS.

A shout out to the good folk at WellyBuzz who are doing an amazing job listing down all the fun events going on in Wellington each & every week - how else would we find out about things like the Crane Parade last week!?

We’ve now hit the 300+ subscribers to this email, that’s a good start, but let’s get more! Please feel free to forward this email, or use content as you want.

Rule #1 - Celebrate the Wins

  • Prospero Energy, trading as Factor, have raised $3m to help electricity retailers price their offers to commercial customers. Co-founders are Jessica Venning-Bryan and Simon Polhen (both ex Flick, Flux) [NBR]

  • Weta FX has two Emmy Award nominations for visual effects work on House of Dragon and The Last of Us [THE POST]

  • CreativeHQ has helped the Fiji Innovation Hub get set up [LINKEDIN]

  • Cogo (based at Taiawa) have teamed up with ASB to launch the Better Energy Calculator - how much can you save via electrification? [LINK]

And recent media coverage:

Rule #2 - Meet the Locals

Weds 23rd July, 5.30-6.30pm, Fabian Society will be hosting Rob Campbell, Tim Naish & Michael Baker to consider how to get political decision makers to understand evidence. That’s at 2/57 Willis St. [TICKET & INFO] 

Thurs 24th July, 5.30-7.00pm, Quantum Frontiers event at the British High Commission with Prof Andrew Daley from Oxford and Dr Nathaniel Davis from the Dodd-Wallis Centre. Please contact James Araci ([email protected]) if interested.

Thurs 24th July, 5.30-7.30pm, FLINT Wellington: Fintech Futures - From Ideas to Impact hosted by MinterEllisonRuddWatts [TICKETS & INFO]

Thurs 24th July, 5.30-7.30pm, Young Professionals Brand Workshop with Stanley Henry at Forsyth Barr [TICKETS & INFO]

Thurs 24th July, 5.30-7.30pm, Critical Signals on Taranaki St, “Social media as an infrastructure for democracy”, with “rabble”, [TICKET & INFO]

Thurs 24th July, 5.30pm, Asteron Center - “UK Reaper MQ-9 - Engineering Management Challenges” a talk by Rebecca Langton at the CAA as part of the aero society [INFO]

Friday 25th July, 4.30pm, Biotech & Beers, at Fortune Favours.

Mon 28th July, 5-7pm, AI Agents in Action from AI Engineer NZ at Hnry [WAITLIST]

Weds 30th July, 12 noon, Deep Tech Network Lunch hosted by the MacDiarmid Institute at the new offices of Advemto, contact: Kevin Sheehy

Weds 30th July, 6-8pm, WellyForge2 at Undercurrent on Tory Street, main speakers will be Neil Butler, founder of Optimation and Hi-Tech Award winner along with Dr Ratu Mataira, CEO & founder of OpenStar Technologies. We’ll also have three short introductory talks, including from Jack Weekly, founder of Bupper, NZ’s first quantum computing company and two PhD students, Jordan MacLachlan and Sarah Draper - [WAITLIST]

Thurs 31st July, 12.30pm, Hutt Valley Science Community Meeting

Thurs 31st July, 4.30-7pm, Wellington Start Up Collective at CreativeHQ, come along for lots of non-advice (please do register).

Fri 1st Aug, 4.30pm at Dockside, Talent Army’s 10th Anniversary Party

Fri-Sun, 1st-3rd Aug, Start Up Weekend Hackathon for Students - mentors needed! [INFO]

Tues 5th Aug, 6-8pm, Fireside Chat with Game Designer Ron Gilbert at Victoria School of Design [INFO & TICKETS]

Thurs 7th Aug, 11.30am - 6pm, Royal Society, Falling Walls Lab 2025, 21, 3 minute pitches from across the Pacific on ideas to improve society. [DETAILS] [TICKETS]

Thurs 7th Aug, 5.30pm, at Rutherford House, Booster & Victoria celebrate 7 years of partnership which has seen $7.2m invested into 13 spin-outs, leading to 80+ jobs and a combined enterprise value of over $200m [TICKETS]

Mon Aug 11th Quantum & Infrastructure Events in Wellington with Dr Cathy Foley (invite only, organized by Zahra Champion).

Tue/Wed Aug 12/13th at AWS offices in Wellington, AI Hackathon Festival 2025 run by AI Forum of New Zealand

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. [DETAILS]

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? [TICKETS]

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

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

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

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:

  • Mondays 8-9am, Atom - Founder Mentoring

  • Weds 12-1pm, Atom - Founder Support Drop-In Hour

  • Thursdays (every other), 31st July, Kapiti Start-Up Network Meet-Ups

  • Fridays (every other), 25th July, Atom - Founders Meet Up at Southern Cross

Reminders:

Rule #3 - Understand the Wider Environment

Rule #4 - Your Local Community Index

WellyForge