Hey everybody,

Thank you for the amazing response to both Hack Aotearoa and WellyForge #10! Both events are sold out, so if you can no longer make it, please update your booking so we can pack both rooms 😎 🛠 🎓

Everything is AI right now, at least in the view of the world that I can access. The AI Summit was very interesting for the coffee chats as much as the talks: a lot of them asked why people are still talking about governance three Summits in a row, and what is stopping us from taking the plunge. Astra is prompting more oohs and wows from deeply technical and casual users alike. And the first bit of explicit AI policy is announced this election season. And the gossip on the NZIAT AI Platform suggests it will receive more funding than initially announced.

I’m light on the big wins this week, but rest assured that Welly people are making moves! Heaps of activity on my LinkedIn feed, lots of good things brewing, the kinds of things that will land announcements in this section soon enough ✨

New Zealanders are burning through enough prompts to sit near the top of per-capita AI use globally. But as Peter Griffin argues, we must be more than passive AI customers paying offshore subscriptions without creating IP and value locally. That dependency brings some possibly serious baggage: Anthropic's September 2026 Threat Intelligence Report claims that the likes of Moonshot and DeepSeek route prompts into Claude, which brings data control and vendor vetting risk.

The election brings the political and operational AI gulf into focus. Labour has promised to set up an AI regulator, copyright rules for creators, and guardrails on data centres. No incentive to use the technology, just more local governance if I am not mistaken. This was a huge part of the coffee-time chatter at the Aotearoa AI Summit last week. The one talk that broke that mould was JD Trask’s kick-in-the-butt wake-up call, urging the room to stop hand-wringing over governance and ethics and actually start building. Trask contends that our small, agile software shops have a huge advantage over the tech giants trapped in quarterly layoff doom loops. We just have to get going already.

Expansion goals on local compute do eventually hit the reality of grid capacity. The Major Electricity Users' Group is calling for a crackdown on network costs and intervention to secure dry-year firming generation. I like how this maps to JD’s summit zinger asking whether your Chief AI Officer has lunch with your Chief Electricity Officer.

It’s not all risk and doom: An innovation economy depends on cultivating young minds and importing the right talent (plus repatriating upskilled expats). The immigration balance is stabilising, with net migration climbing back above 20,000. That’s some good breathing room for R&D and hiring pipelines and seems to contradict the narrative that everyone is moving across the Tasman right now! Clearly a lot of people are, but that’s OK: Welly will win them back one day 😊

Canadian PM’s pitch in the face of the neighbourly spat? To make his country an associate member of the EU. An interesting manoeuvre for a mid-sized, trade-dependent economy. We’re already an “associated third country” in Horizon Europe, and that already comes with trade fine print. Would it work to extend that kind of deal? #anythigncanbegovtech

If you are on the lookout for a technical co-founder, commercial lead, or early-stage partner to get your venture off the ground, check out Lineup.nz 😎

Founder pay is up 8% 🥳 Gender pay gap also up, wait, that’s bad.

Hopefully I can count to ten and this will be out of embargo when the newsletter ships 😬 🕚 The Tech NZ Engineering Biology working group is announced with heaps of Welly representation: Malaghan, VUW, Bontia Bio (of WelllyForge#1 fame) and our very own Ipshita Mandal-Johnson!

Hey, maybe the people who try to make sure buildings don’t go the way of a Spinal Tap drummer should keep their funding?

Some more coverage of resilience tech from the Claude Impact Lab, where people were coached to use Anthropic's tools for hyper-local disaster response and emergency management tools.

And cast your vote for People’s Choice at the Aotearoa AI Awards.

Highlighted entries are new from last week.

Wed, Sep 16th, 6–7pm, Critical Minerals, Material Solutions, at Rutherford House. 🪨

Wed, Sep 16th, 6–8pm, Sub-ice shelf exploration, talk by the Antarctic Society.

Fri, Sep 18th, HackAotearoa [WLG]: Co-working for startup builders 😎 🛠

Fri, Sep 18th, 4–5pm, What govens AI is the next talk in AI and Society at VUW by Alexandra Andhov.

Sat, Sep 19th, 10am–4pm, Software Freedom Day Wellington 2026.

Wed, Sep 23rd, 5–7:30pm, The 2026 Innovation Election Debate, hosted by Creative HQ at the Beehive.

Wed, Sep 23rd, 6–8pm, WellyForge #10 at Gracefield.

Thu, Sep 24th, SaaSpocalypse Now at Hnry Stadium, Aotearoa’s premier SaaS gathering, hosted by KiwiSaaS.

Fri, Sep 25th, 4:30–6.30pm, Welly Biotech ‘n’ Beers at Fork and Brewer.

Thu, Oct 1st, 6pm, Innovative Young Minds quiz and fundraiser at Boulcott Farm Golf Club.

2–4 Oct, Climate Hack-tion is a “hackathon for students to reimagine climate solutions”. Go imagine! And maybe win a prize 🥇

Fri, Oct 9th, Small nation, big opportunity: NZ's path into global fusion ⚛

Tue, Oct 13th, 10:30–11:30am, Artificial Intelligence in Everyday Life is an intro talk aimed at seniors, at the fancy new library. Tell your folks 🙂

Thu, Oct 22nd, 11am–8pm, Show Me the Money, “A full day of practical capital, growth and connections for founders”.

30–31 Oct, Kawaiicon 4 at the Michael Fowler Centre no less.

Fri, May 7th 2027, NZ Tech Rally on a Super Early Bird launch.

The Atom at Victoria is open for any unfunded Founders (Students, Early Stage, Idea Stage) and is run by Tania Jones, with entrepreneurs in Residence, Parisa Shademan, Jack Shennan, and Alistair St Pierre and investors in residence Dave Moskovitz, Aaron Scott + Ralph Highnam. Email or join the Facebook community.