Hello Everyone:

WellyForge2, sponsored by Litmaps, sold out, tonight (Weds), see you there!

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 but so far Andrew Little, Diane Calvert, Karl Tiefenbacher & Ray Chung have confirmed - TICKETS.

Rule #1 - Celebrate the Wins

• Not only do we have WCC mayoral candidate Karl Tiefenbacher attending science-tech events to learn, including WF1 and talking in his campaign about making Wellington the “Tech and Innovation Capital of Australasia”, but Andrew Little was quoted in Stuff last week as “Wellington is the city of smart people doing amazing things in technology, science and the creative arts”, that was then followed up by Greg Pollock chairman of Wellington Chamber of Commerce saying “With its mix of science, technology, and creative industries, Wellington had the right ingredients to thrive, and was well-positioned for a strong recovery” - that’s all a good start, now we need details from them of how WCC and the region can use our skills to propel things forward.

• John Campbell, CEO of Wellington based Our Energy Limited announced they are now rolling out Localflex, NZ’s first local flexibility market via an international collaboration with EPEX SPOT. [LINKEDIN] (We’ll need to get John, and the team from Factor in to talk energy at some point soon).

• Weta Workshop have released “Tales of the Shire” today [POST] - the gaming was cited to be bigger than film & music combined earlier this year.

And recent media coverage:

• Catalyst Cloud (based in Wellington) calling for Cloud infrastructure to be hosted in NZ [LINKEDIN]

• I understand “Rabble” (very early employee at Twitter) is now Wellington based and doing podcasts, first one out last week with Jack Dorsey [LINKEDIN]

Rule #2 - Meet the Locals

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 researchers, Jordan MacLachlan and Sarah Draper [SOLD OUT]

Thurs 31st July, 12.30pm, Hutt Valley Science Community Meeting, discussing in particular how to ensure the Gracefield site stays active & growing for companies across the whole region.

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

Thurs 31st July, 5-7.30pm, CriticalSignals.nz (115 Taranaki St) will introduce you to the Meshtastic platform which allows for messaging even in a total black-out, right from your phone.

Fri 1st Aug, 10.30-11.30am, UniVentures and GD1 are running a Founder Workshop at Vic in Kelburn on “Building a Solid Startup Foundation” [DETAILS & 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]

Fri 8th Aug, 8.30-12.30, Supercharge your Business Productivity with AI run by Taiawa’s Dascha Cooper and Serge van Dam, at Victoria. [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]

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

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.

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

Fri Nov 21st, 6pm. Wellington Regional Business Excellence Awards 2025

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 ON-LINE

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

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

• Fridays (every other), 8th August, Atom - Founders Meet Up at Southern Cross

Reminders:

• Wellington Regional Business Excellence Awards 2025 open (to 12 Sept)

• CreativeHQ are seeking applications for a Fintech Accelerator, deadline 11th August.

• SummerOfTech are looking for employers ready to help junior talent

• Deloitte Fast 50 entries open to 29th August (good for PR!)

Rule #3 - Understand the Wider Environment

• Sunday Star Times covering the concerns as Callaghan winds down from start-ups about funding, some reassuring words in here from certain groups, like the Health Tech Activator.

Rule #4 - Your Local Community Index

• AngelHQ for contacting the local angel community

• Angelic Drop In (ADI) Clinics in Wellington

• Atom at Victoria, contact Entrepreneur in Residence, Adiraj Gupta

• Glean Report for a full round down of knowledge events in Welly

• LabMates for scientists of any career stage to connect & collaborate

• MacDiarmid Institute invites companies with R&D challenges to present to their Science Advisory Panels for science matchmaking

• Momentum for students with ideas

• Morgo for NZ entrepreneurs (run from Wellington by Jenny Morel)

• Movac, Wellington’s local VC

• Start-Up Coaching (Free, via CreativeHQ)

• Start-Up Wellington (the people behind Start-Up Weekend)

• Taiawa Wellington Tech Hub (WCC/Vic), run by Dascha Cooper

• Virtual CXO’s, you can filter under each role for Wellington

• Wellington Gold Awards (Hall of Fame)

• Wellington NZ Business Support

• Wellington Start Up Collective to meet non-advising fellow start-up nuts

• WhatFoundersWant useful stuff from Wellington-based Lane Litz

WellyForge