Hello Everyone:

With Sharesies raising $20m, that means Wellington-based startups have raised a staggering $73m in the past couple of weeks. And if they can, you can.

That positive news did not feature in our local papers, but with the local elections now passed, here’s to Andrew Little following on from his words offered at WellyForge3 and promoting and supporting science, tech & innovation across the region:

The second main speaker for WellyForge5 Halloween Edition on Oct 29th will be Roscoe Price Moor from Roady, who are the last of the Wellington Gold Award winners on our list to get on stage. They won Emerging Gold, and I’m assured by Roscoe that there’s certainly a spooky aspect to some of their user reported trips. We also now have a great set of speakers for the quickfire Dead Startup Society interlude which we’ll let you know next week. On tickets - we are onto the waitlist, previous experience suggests most people do get tickets, so hold on in there! And, remember the after-party, “Dead Startups Halloween Party” at Mean Doses on Tory St being coordinated by the amazing Lane Litz and What Founders Want.

We are slowly upgrading some of the stuff we do, so WellyForge.nz is now our home, and we have a WellyForge LinkedIn Page. Got news for us? Reference that LinkedIn page on your posts or email us. We will use that page for more detailed stuff that arises every now & then, but very much keep this newsletter our main conduit. We’re also expanding the core WellyForge team, so welcome Hercules Konstantopoulus from the Malaghan Institute.

Okay, loads of AI stuff this week on Weds & Thursday (see below), but please make sure you get to Victoria if you can on Weds afternoon (today!) to meet their AI & data people - they want to collaborate!

And recent media coverage of local interest:

ECOSYSTEM MAP & COMMUNITY INDEX

Note: there are many AI showcases going on, we’re trying to pick the ones more generic and more geared towards you all, rather than listing all of them.

NEXT TWO WEEKS:

Weds Oct 15th, 4-7pm, Victoria’s AI Department Showcase in the Hub in Kelburn. “the right forum to explore opportunities for collaboration across academia, industry, and government.”

Thu Oct 16th, 9-4.15pm, Measuring Circular Economies, a day conference with international speakers being hosted by Massey at 5 Hayward Terrace.

Thu Oct 16th, 10-11am, Brain-Like Embodied Intelligence, a talk by Prof Yaochu Jin from Westlake University at Vic, LBLT, Laby Building 118

Thu Oct 16th, 11-12pm, Physically Grounded AI for Scientific Discovery, a talk by Prof Yew-Soon Ong from Singapore at Vic, LBLT118 Laby Building.

Thu Oct 16th, 8.30am-6pm, AI for Adults: A Mind-blowing Exploration for Tech Companies, Level 12, Rutherford House, organized by Taiawa & Vic.

Wed Oct 22nd, 6.30pm, Wellington Address from Power of Three, celebration of Wellington by Wellington Chamber of Commerce, Te Awe Maori Business Network, and Wellington Pasifika Business Network.

Thu Oct 23rd, 5pm, Wahine Fuelled Tech - Deep dive into Creative Tech, features speakers from animation, games, VR and design.

Thu Oct 23rd, 5-7pm, Morgo Game for Tech Execs - role-play real challenges faced by tech start-ups, you’ll be amazed by the things that have actually happened.

Thu Oct 23rd, 5pm, Digital Health Lightning Talks, first one is Erika Butters talking about Volition and their amazing work with disabled people.

Thu Oct 23rd, 5.20-7.20pm, AI + Engineering: an altered perspective hosted by Wellington Architects Forum at Asteron House - “human and AI collaboration is transforming software”

Fri-Mon, Oct 24th-28th, POWER UP! Game Jam for Women, a virtual event but being run out of Wellington by XEquals based on Cuba.

Fri-Sun, Oct 24th-26th, Victoria Design School 50 Year Celebrations, excellent range of talks from alumni that have gone on to great things.

Tue, Oct 28th, 4-6.30pm, AI and HR, at the BNZ Partners Centre, includes talks from AutoHive.

Wed, Oct 29th, 8-9am, Women in Health Tech Coffee at Lab XXCQ in the Deloitte Building.

Wed, Oct 29th, 7-9pm, WellyForge5 Halloween Edition (Details & Tickets), sponsored by What Founders Want, and note the 9pm+ after party "Dead Startups Halloween Party” (Details & Tickets)

KNOWN, MAJOR, FUTURE EVENTS

Thu, Oct 30th, 12-1.30pm, “Westpac Smarts: Go from asking to automating with AI”, run by the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, with local legend JD Trask as key speaker.

Fri, Oct 31st, 8-5pm, Royal Aeronautical Society Symposium & Awards being held at Parliament.

Thu Nov 6th, 4.30-7.30pm, Wellington Start-Up Collective, meet other founders (young & old) and talk through just about anything in a supportive atmosphere

Thu-Sat, Nov 6-8th, Kawaiicon 2025, at the Michael Fowler Center, hacker paradise

Thu Nov 6th, iSANZ (Cybersecurity) Awards Gala Dinner, Shed 6

Mon-Wed, Nov 10-13th, ICDE (International Council for Open & Distance Education) is being hosted at Takina with AI a major focus

Thu Nov 13th, Capital Capital Summit 2025, a whole day summit for founders & investors, starting with the basics, moving into growth, and ending with the AngelHQ annual showcase. Going be a big day.

Fri-Sun, Nov 14-16th, Start Up Weekend Wellington is Back! Sponsored by WellyForge! Get along, get active, and get things moving.

Mon-Sun, Nov 17-23rd, KohaCon25, conference for the world’s open source library system (Koha).

Mon-Fri, Nov 17th-21st, Pacific Rim International Conference on AI (PRICAI) is being held at Takina with plenty of input from the AI people at Victoria

Tue-Fri, Nov 18th-22nd, ANZ for Extracellular Vesicles Conference at Harbourside

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

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

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

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.