Author: Lin Nah

The World of Agile – Wellington – 6 June 2019

What

Female Fuel’d: Tech Talks June meetup all about the world of agile and how you can apply it in your current role!

In this interactive session, you’ll have the opportunity to talk with Charlotte Hinton, Agile coach extraordinaire, on any questions you have about agile/scrum and all things in-between. Whether you are a newbie to this way of working, perhaps exploring wanting to work in this space or whether you want to explore a few different challenges you are having in this space, bring your questions along for us to work through them on the night.

We’ll finish the session with an opportunity for networking.

All welcome, you don’t need to be currently working in tech or to identify as female to participate.

Hello, meet Charlotte

Charlotte is an Agile Coach. Her passion is to encourage teams wanting to explore different ways of working, workload transparency, identifying bottlenecks before they arise and have the team really focused on continuously improving how they work together to deliver amazing things.

The experiments Charlotte brings to a team could be a mashup of a few different approaches from agile, scrum, lean, kanban, design thinking to design sprints, depending on where the team are in their transformation and what they are wanting to achieve. Charlotte is also one of the organisers for Agile Welly, a Wellington based meetup for people to learn more about agile and the various disciplines, skills and challenges involved.

When and Where

Thursday, June 6, 2019
5:30 PM to 7:00 PM

Flux Federation
86 Customhouse Quay, Wellington

How Much

Free. Please RSVP here.

More

Female Fuel’d: Tech Talks – Wellington Meetup – June 2019 event: World of Agile.
Agile Welly Meetup.
Credit for Image: Leveraging Agile Principles in Non-Software Product Development – Part Two.

Demos of Drupal Distributions – Wellington – 4 June 2019

What

“Out of the box” is used a lot in CMS solution world. But what does that really when looking at Drupal? How many boxes are there, and what comes out of them?!?

A strongly recommended meetup for anyone who is evaluating the strengths of Drupal and what the different flavours of it look like.

In this meetup we’ll be exploring what can Drupal distributions can do. How many of them are there? What are some good use cases that these solutions can be matched to?

For example, did you know Drupal has a distribution for each one of the following?

  • Social media community
  • Government website framework
  • Online publishing for large publisher needs
  • DAM (Digital Asset Management)
  • API aggregation / containerisation
  • Events management
  • Knowledge base
  • Profile management
  • AND TONNES MORE!

We’ll be answering these questions and more at the next Drupal meetup – with live demos wherever possible.

Gold and Cathy will lead us on content and discussion around this powerful solutions landscape as we explore what the various flavors of Drupal ‘can really do out of the box’.

SPONSORS:

REFRESHMENTS and ORGANISATION provided by Xequals (in the form of beer, pizza, and cat herding!). Thanks Xequals!

VENUE is provided by Catalyst IT. Thanks Catalyst!

When and Where

Tuesday, 4 June 2019.
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.

Catalyst IT
Level 3, Catalyst House,
150 Willis Street, Wellington

Turn up before 6 which is when the doors lock or txt/phone the number on the door to be let in by a Catalyst person,

How Much

Free. Please RSVP here and email organisers if you have dietary requriements.

More

Wellington Drupal Meetup and event.

Doc Edge Festival – Auckland – 30 May to 9 June 2019

What

Showcasing the most popular and groundbreaking documentaries,
Doc Edge, Australasia’s premier & Academy Award qualifying film festival, returns to Q Theatre celebrating its 14th anniversary.

2019 Programme Summary – 65 true stories
This year, you will find a variety selections of premium documentaries from world festival favourites to celebrations of whānau and fearless wāhine. Also, there are 8 categories carefully curated by Doc Edge investigations of crime & conspiracy, explorations everyday life & artistic excellence, and much more.

Documentaries and Events or Programme (flipbook).

Doc Edge 2019 goes live with remarkable programme of 65 films. Mindfood. May 8, 2019.
20 Documentaries you cannot miss at the 14th Documentary Edge Festival: Part 1 and Part 2.

Doc Edge Exhibition
The third Doc Edge Exhibition features a selection of fourteen international experiences covering VR, AR and installations, as well as digital interactive projects.

When and Where

30 May 2019 – 9 June 2019

Q Theatre remains the heart of the Doc Edge Festival.
Additional screenings, exhibitions and industry events will be held at the Auckland Art Gallery and the Ellen Melville Centre.

Doc Edge Exhibition
4 – 7 June 2019
9am – 5pm
Ellen Melville Centre,
2 Freyberg Pl, Auckland.

How Much

Ticket prices and information: Range from free to $250 (Binge Viewing Pass). Full price ticket: $18. Weekday special $12.

Documentaries and Events.

Doc Edge Exhibition is free and open to public.

More

Doc Edge Festival 2019 is also on twitter @DocEdge , facebook and instagram.

Chromacon 2019 – Auckland – 1-2 June 2019

What

Chromacon 2019 – New Zealand Indie Arts Festival

Chromacon is a non-profit biennial indie arts festival based in Auckland, New Zealand that celebrates the coming together of creativity, artistic excellence and community.

Chromacon connects all New Zealanders with a group of highly talented multi-disciplinary independent creators working across an ever-expanding range of mediums including illustration, comics, concept art, sculpture/ designer toys, animation, tabletop/ video games, and more!

You will find original artwork and creative projects from independent creators of different media, styles, and genres at Chromacon. You will also be able to purchase self-published work or even one-off originals directly from the creatives themselves.

The intimate nature of the event offers you the chance to meet and connect with creatives you may already admire or others creating new and exciting work that you weren’t aware of.

Furthermore, we will be hosting live events, drawing/painting demos, and artist talks/ panels on a variety of subjects throughout the weekend.

We invite everyone with an interest in art, in particular storytelling in visual and interactive mediums to come join us for a celebration of Kiwi creativity. Whether you’re a fledgling artist yourself or simply curious about the amazing original work created by independent creators right here in New Zealand, everyone’s welcome!

This year we’ve almost doubled in size and will be showcasing close to 200 creators and taking over all floors of our venue – the newly refurbished Aotea Centre.

Chromacon 2019 will feature:

  • Exhibitors: 120+ NZ & international illustrators, comic artists, designers, animators, sculptors, game developers and more personally showcasing their work to the public.
  • Live Art: live drawing, painting demonstrations and hands-on creative activties
  • Public artist talks and discussion panels.
  • Games and interactive activities.
  • Lots of other cool activities!
  • CHROMA ART AWARDS 2019:
  • CHROMA CONNECT 2019: a creative summit featuring industry talks/ panels and masterclasses aimed at professional development, to take place the following weekend (8-9 June) in Wellington in partnership with Massey University and Weta Workshop.

Chromacon 2019  will take place over the weekend of 1 – 2 June 2019 – Completely FREE for public entry. Once again, we’re partnering up with Auckland Live to bring Chromacon to Aotea Centre at the heart of Auckland City.

Watch the Chromacon 2019 Festival trailer.

When and Where

1 – 2 June 2019
10 AM – 5PM

Aotea Centre, Auckland.

How Much

Free public entry.

Kickstarter to support Chromacon 2019 to remain free and receive exclusive Art Book, Enamel Pin, T-Shirt, Limited Edition Prints, Original Art & more! Closes 24 May 2019.

More

Chromacon 2019 website and kickstarter has more information about the festival.

Chromacon 2019 is also on Facebook, Facebook event, Twitter @Chromacon, and Instagram.  

As we are a non-profit, grassroots event – please help us spread the news and invite all art lovers to come along!

Refactor North – Whangarei – 16 May 2019

What

It’s time for our third event in Whangarei. Last year was a sell-out, so you will want to be quick to hear from inspiring women speakers.

Women in the technology industry are intelligent, passionate and knowledgeable. However, as a minority in both the sector and at tech-related events, the uneven ratio can make it difficult or unwelcoming for women.

We want to keep improving the New Zealand tech industry by inspiring women to not only stay in it but get to the top — running teams, in board positions, on the speaker line-ups at conferences, and as visible leaders to inspire an incoming generation of smart women.

We’re delighted to be welcoming Frances Valintine, Cassie McAdams and Tammy Auranen.

Speaker profiles

Frances Valintine (CNZM)
Founder & CEO, The Mind Lab & Tech Futures Lab

Frances was raised on a farm near Hawera, Taranaki and moved to Auckland when she was around 14.  She is a keen adventure traveller and loves heading off the beaten path to venture into unknown places to get some head space.  

Frances has been a passionate educator and technologist for more than 20 years. In 2013 she founded The Mind Lab, to empower students and educators to develop applied digital knowledge and capability. In 2016 Frances launched Tech Futures Lab to support individuals, organisations and government to navigate the impact of technological advancement and cultural change in the workplace.  In the past 5 years her organisations have taught over 150,000 students, 4,000 teachers and worked with 250 New Zealand organisations.  

Frances sits on Callaghan Innovation and Dilworth Trust Board and is a selection advisor for the Edmund Hillary Foundation. She holds a Master of Education Management from the University of Melbourne.

Frances has received many awards for her work. She was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2018 recognising her lifetime of contribution in education and technology and named one of the top 50 EdTech Educators in the World in 2016 by EdTech International.

Cassie McAdams
Invesment Manager, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise

Cassie is inspired about fuelling NZ’s start-up ecosystem to compete on a global scale. She believes that all great ideas and founders need support and perspective – and of course adequate funding from the right investors to get there. 

Originally from Whangarei, Cassie has spent her 10-year career predominantly consulting at PwC and Deutsche Bank in Auckland and London. She holds degrees in Law and Science, and recently completed an MBA as an IE Foundation Scholar at IE Business School in Madrid. During that time, Cassie completed IE’s Startup Lab program and interned at Fundie Ventures, developing an interest in entrepreneurship and early-stage venture investment. 

Back on home soil, she now works in the Investment Team at NZTE, and regularly travels to Northland on a mission to help founders to build an investible proposition and raise capital.

Tammy Auranen
Group Manager Digital, Northpower Limited

Tammy was born and raised in a small mining community in Northern Ontario, Canada. About 3 years ago, she had the opportunity to come to NZ for work, and quickly decided to make it her permanent home, based now in Northland. 

Tammy’s career has been in digital, technology and improvement based roles over the course of 18 years and spans many industries. Most recently, she led the IT and systems functions at Far North District Council, City Fitness Group and SunRype Products. She has recently been appointed to lead Northpower’s technology transformation from a mix of legacy systems to a strategic emphasis on digital.

Whilst in Canada she was awarded ‘Women to Watch’ by the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce. She was selected for this award due to her leadership and influence in the local tech and business community, as well as her participation in local mentorship programs for women in technology – something she is passionate about.

When and Where

Thursday 16th May 2019,
6:00 pm – 8.30 pm

Whangarei Art Museum
The Hub, Dent Street, Town Basin

How Much

$20 for adults and $10 for student.
Ticket prices are reduced this year thanks to Northpower’s commitment to the community.
Grab tickets here.

More

Refactor North: Whangarei May 2019

Refactor’s Code of Conduct and Privacy Policy.

GovCMS 2.0 – Thom Toogood & 100% Open Source Stack – Wellington – 30 April 2019

What

GovCMS 2.0 – Thom Toogood & The 100% Open Source Stack

This is a special, opportunistic meetup arranged at short notice, hosted at Xequals new offices and event space on Cuba St. It is directly relevant to all Drupal stakeholders in Wellington who have anything at all to do with Government & Drupal. For those of you who didn’t know, GovCMS is the open source Drupal distribution which is now the standarised web platform for the Australian Government.

Thom Toogood, an NZer who has been central to the project, is coming to Wellington and wants to present to us on this example of government innovation using opensource, with big implications for the Australasian Drupal community.

Highly recommended for anyone who works on New Zealand or Australian Government websites, or is involved in digital infrastructure and strategy.

There are a limited amount of spots available so click that RSVP button!
………………………………………………..
As announced in July 2018, the GovCMS (Australia) team are now working with Salsa Digital and amazee.io to build the next generation of the GovCMS hosting platform. Last Nov 2019 they migrated 102 GovCMS sites onto the new GovCMS platform (https://salsadigital.com.au/news/102-govcms-sites-live-on-next-generation-govcms-platform) and have on-boarded a lot more sites since.

Thom Toogood, Platform Architect (amazee.io) & Toby Bellwood, Technical Lead (GovCMS) will provide an overview of the new platform and how GovCMS sites are developed, tested, deployed and hosted on it.

Xequals will provide food & beverage for all attendees. If you have any special dietary requirements, please email [masked]

When and Where

Tuesday, April 30, 2019
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Xequals
93 Cuba St, Wellington

How Much

Free. Limited space so please RSVP here.

More

Wellington Drupal Meetup takes place on the first Tuesday of the month.

Computer Language Model for Digitising NZ Statute Law – Wellington – 16 April 2019

What

Adrian Kelly, legal counsel at IRD will present his paper “A Computer Language Model for Digitising New Zealand Statute Law”, which he will have presented in Zambia at the In-house Counsel conference.

We will also have a small demo by Mike Fergsson of his smartcore-based rules engine implementation … a ‘proto-digital statute’.

No expertise required, bring your questions!

When and Where

Tuesday, April 16, 2019
5:30 PM to 7:30 PM

Innovation Lab
L4 191-195 Thorndon Quay, Pipitea,
Wellington

How Much

Free. Please RSVP here.

More

Meetup event for Legal Hackers NZ. Website and twitter @LegalHackersNZ

Global Azure Bootcamp 2019 – Wellington – 27 April 2019

What

All around the world user groups and communities want to learn about Azure and Cloud Computing!

Mark Russinovich ready for Global Azure Bootcamp 2019

On April 27, 2019, all communities will come together once again in the sixth great Global Azure Bootcamp event! Each user group will organize their own one day deep dive class on Azure the way they see fit and how it works for their members. The result is that thousands of people get to learn about Azure and join together online under the social hashtag #GlobalAzure!

There are two venues listed for Wellington, each with its own organiser and meetup. It is possible there may be other New Zealand locations announced after this post. Globtal Azure Bootcamp events can be filtered by country and/or searched.

Check out the outcome of last year’s event in this 2018 Global Azure Bootcamp Whitepaper (pdf).

When and Where

27 April 2019

Event organised by Wellington Data Management and Analytics Meetup.
Saturday 27 April 2019 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
Unisys New Zealand, 155 The Terrace, Radio NZ House, Wellington.
Meetup event (RSVP here) and Global Azure Bootcamp page.

Event organised by Chinese IT Association NZ.
Saturday 27 April 2019 from 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM.
Intergen, 80 Willis St, Wellington.
Meetup event (RSVP here) and Global Azure Bootcamp page.

How Much

Free.
Please indicate in the meetup if you are attending.
If you have said you will attend but can’t, please remove yourself from the attending list so others may attend.

More

Global Azure Bootcamp. Twitter: @GlobaleAzure and #GlobalAzure.
Wellington Data Management and Analytics Meetup.
Chinese IT Association NZ

Note: There is an event in Auckland. It is full with a waiting list.
Auckland Global Azure Bootcamp page and eventbrite.
Organisers: Auckland Azure User Group and North Shore .NET User Group.

WOSSAT – Wellington – 16 April 2019

What

Wellington Open Source Show And Tell (WOSSAT)

Two speakers scheduled for meeting on April 16th

Thomas Munro — A tour of PostgreSQL

Thomas will talk about the PostgreSQL project’s origins, open source culture, and some specific features he really likes.
Thomas is a member of EnterpriseDB’s database server team and has made a number of contributions to PostgreSQL.

Tom Eastman — Secateur

Tom is using Python and open source tools to interface with the Twitter API with the goal of equalizing the battleground trashfire of harassment that Twitter so easily becomes. Help him work out how to turn it into a tool that other people can use, and that is affordable to host

When and Where

6pm Tuesday, 16th April 2019.

Catalyst IT
Level 3, Catalyst House,
150 Willis Street, Wellington

How Much

Free

More

wossat.nz – Meetup event.

Future Meetings Schedule:

Monthly meetings alternate between the 3rd Tuesday and the 3rd Thursday of each month.
The following meeting will be on Thursday 16th May 2019.

If you would like to be a speaker at a future meeting, please visit the web site and use the email link to make contact.

Bioblitz – Wellington – 5-6 April 2019

What

Bioblitz – Uncover the secrets of the garden

We know a lot about the plants we grow but what’s hiding in between the roots and stems? Help us uncover the garden’s secrets.

This 24-hour Bioblitz offers the opportunity for children and families to look into the diversity of plants and animals that live at the Wellington Botanic Garden. Scientists from around the country, Friends of the Wellington Botanic Garden and individual volunteers will help analyse the secrets of the garden. The results of the Bioblitz will be made publicly available.

We’re in a race to snapshot as many different species in the Botanic Garden as we can within 24-hours. As a super science sleuth, you’ll use iNaturalist, the latest mobile phone technology so that you can make solo discoveries. If you prefer to work in a team, our field trips will give you the upper hand with an expert leading the pack.

Join our special 150th anniversary BioBlitz and help us discover what’s really living and growing in the garden in 2019.

Short video about Bioblitz.

When and Where

3pm, 5 April – 3pm, 6 April 2019

Wellington Botanic Garden

Bioblitz public programme

Friday 5 April 2019

2.25pm Opening Ceremony at Soundshell Lawn.
3pm – 7pm: Official start and public picnic at Soundshell Lawn.
3pm – 8pm: Bioblitz HQ is open at Treehouse Visitor Centre.
8.30pm: Bioblitz Guided Walk: Titiwai – New Zealand’s Glow Worm. (More about this walk at bottom of page)

Saturday 6 April 2019

8.30am – 3.15pm: Bioblitz HQ is open at Treehouse Visitor Centre.
11am-3pm: Video Booth at Treehouse Visitor Centre Carpark.
10am – 11am: Bioblitz Guided Walk: Tiny plants that are everywhere.
12.30pm – 1:45pm: Bioblitz Guided Walk: From ground level to tree tops.
1.45pm – 2:45pm : Bioblitz Guided Walk: The Wonderful World of Weeds.
3pm: Close of the Bioblitz

How Much

Free.
Bookings are required for free guided walks. Book your spot on a FREE tour by clicking on the guided walk links in the public programme above.
You may participate in the Bioblitz without joining the walks.

You need to have a smartphone with camera and ability to upload photos and information using the iNaturalist app.

More

Wellington Gardens event page.
Eventfinda event page.
iNaturalistNZ event page.

iNaturalistNZ website and twitter @inaturalistnz
Download and install the iNaturalist app on your smartphone

Google Play
Apple App Store

Bioblitz Guided Walk: Titiwai – New Zealand’s Glow Worm

This is the only walk sold out when this page was created. A guided walk called “Glow in the dark titiwai tours – New Zealand glow worms” is also by Wellington’s Botanic Gardens on other Fridays. $6 per person and Free for children under 12. Eventfinda event with dates and tickets.