Last week, Tauranga hosted its inaugural innovation festival, Groundswell. Over seven days, a number of truly inspiring events were held across the city, featuring many of the Bay of Plenty’s leading entrepreneurs and emerging tech businesses, enabling us to celebrate their outstanding achievements. Last night, I joined a large crowd at Tauranga’s Art Gallery to enjoy the festival’s final showcase; [...]
Over the weekend, Wharf42 entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Western Growers Innovation & Technology Center, based in Salinas, CA. The MOU is designed to provide early stage New Zealand AgTech companies with access to the co-working space facility at the Center’s offices in Salinas. This includes access to training and mentorship, monthly seminars, regularly scheduled events [...]
On Monday, I published a breaking post about a planned visit by Aussie VCs to New Zealand. At the time, I said that I was surprised that I had not heard more about the visit before then. That’s one hell of a shame. 28 Aussie VCs are now coming to NZ. That's awesome! The good news is that [...]
Some of Australia’s leading venture capitalists are visiting our shores in August. For New Zealand tech startups looking to raise capital, this might be a great opportunity to meet, connect and engage. The visit is being put together by the aptly-named High Expectation and its co-sponsors, Amazon Web Services and New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE). You can learn more [...]
It was great to hear that the Bay of Plenty’s bid for a new Regional Research Institute, centred on horticulture, has been approved by Government. The announcement was made at this morning’s Bay of Connections forum in Rotorua. The Government will contribute $8.42 million towards the running costs of the Institute over the next five years. This will be matched [...]
I am delighted to confirm that Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) will be traveling to New Zealand. When Wharf42 was first established in 2012, it was designed to support early stage New Zealand tech companies engage with Silicon Valley’s vast innovation ecosystem. As one who has spent a considerable time living and working in the Valley, I know just [...]
I have been asked by the UK Department for International Trade (DIT) to reach out to the New Zealand AgTech sector to talk a little bit about an opportunity to fly business class to London, courtesy of Qatar Airways; participate in a tailored business programme and receive a complimentary ticket to attend the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit on 17-18 October. [...]
UPDATED: Monday 7 August: Tauranga's inaugural Festival of Innovation, Groundswell, kicks off today. It's quite simply, 7 days of awesomeness. It promises to be an amazing week of events, networking and collaboration. A number of events are already SOLD OUT. Tickets to some however are still available from the Groundswell website. The team at Wharf42 looks forward to catching up [...]
During April’s Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program and Conference, the Kiwi delegation spent two hours hearing from some of the region’s most exciting synthetic biology startups. They all had one thing in common. They were either alumni or participants of the Indie Bio Accelerator Program. Indie Bio is based in downtown San Francisco. The presentations provided some really interesting insights [...]
Calling all NZ AgTech entrepreneurs! I have just received a call from James at the NZ Innovation Council, asking me to reach out to the New Zealand AgTech community to help promote the 2017 NZ Innovation Awards and the Innovation in Agribusiness and Environment category. I needed no encouragement. The NZ Innovation Awards were created to give smart, innovative NZ [...]